


this love (comes with an expiration date)

by everyotherfreckle



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hollywood, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-26
Updated: 2018-06-29
Packaged: 2018-10-24 05:00:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 32,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10734621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everyotherfreckle/pseuds/everyotherfreckle
Summary: this should be simple. he's literally being paid millions of dollars to live in a mansion and hold hands in public with an award winning actress for a few months. he shouldn't be having this much of a moral dilemma over it but he is.//or, the one where rey is an actress with a bit of an image problem and finn is hired to help fix that.





	1. i.

Finn should have dressed better for this.

Sitting here all alone in the giant boardroom at the foot of the long mahogany table in front of the humongous glass windows that allow him to see just about all of downtown Los Angeles, he realizes he just may be underdressed.

His sneakers - his lucky pair: the white Converse with the orange laces - squeak against the floor as he shifts in the leather chair he's sat in. His arms are riddled with goosebumps, and whether that be from the cold temperature of the room or because this is his first ever  _real_  audition, he doesn't know. Now that he's thinking about it, he probably should have worn a sweater. His jeans suddenly feel too drab for the occasion and he remembers there's a tiny hole in them near the front pocket.

When he left his apartment this morning, he felt rather good about what he was wearing. But now? Now he's second guessing everything.

His agent always told him to dress sort of plainly for auditions but this wasn't just any audition. This was an audition with  _the_  hottest production company in town. He probably could have stood to dress a tad nicer.

In the midst of Finn's self-deprecating thoughts about his outfit, the large double doors swing open and his heart almost jumps out of his chest.

Two people walk in, a man and a woman. Both of them are equally sharply dressed. Both of them equally look like they mean business. Finn is sort of terrified.

The man approaches him first. He stands to shake his hand, hoping his palms aren't as sweaty as he thinks they are.

"Finn, right?" The man asks. Finn nods. "Poe Dameron. And this lovely lady here is Leia Organa. Can't tell you how excited we are to meet you."

"Likewise." Finn's voice cracks. He really is  _way_  too nervous.

The three of them sit and Finn watches both of them open various folders and turn through all sorts of pages. He's never heard of an audition taking place like this, but, then again, he's never actually  _been_  on a real audition until today.

"So, you've never been in anything besides church plays and community theatre, correct?" Mr. Dameron asks and Finn is reluctant to nod. He's well aware his lack of on-camera experience could be seen as a negative for whatever project he's reading for, which, they actually haven't told him about yet.

Finn decides to try and smooth that particular bump over. "I've had a lot of on-camera training, though. My instructors always told me I was pretty good too, so - "

The squeak that comes from Miss Organa's chair interrupts his spiel. "What do you think of Rey Skywalker?"

That's...an odd sort of thing to ask unless -

No. There's no way he - an aspiring actor with literally zero credited productions to his name - managed to land an audition for a project opposite  _the_  Rey Skywalker. She is an A-List award winning actress, for crying out loud. He's more than a little less experienced than her typical male lead counterparts.

"I uh," Finn shrugs. Honestly, he admires Rey - to be that  _young_  but still so damn  _talented_  - but lately she's been a bit of a mess in the media.

Ever since she was caught on tape bad-mouthing the co-stars of her latest film - which was a poorly-reviewed young adult novel adaptation - she's sort of been on a downward spiral. She was normally a rather 'boring' celebrity but as of late, more and more blogs have photos of her stumbling out of nightclubs and screenshots of petty Twitter tirades. No one in the industry wanted to touch her with a ten-foot pole, no matter how much talent the girl had.

But it's not like Finn can exactly say any of that.

"I think she's amazing," it's not exactly a lie but it's definitely not the truth. "She seems like a cool girl."

The two execs exchange a look. He can't read if it's good or bad.

Mr. Dameron gives Finn a tight-lipped smile before sliding a piece of paper his direction. The words 'CONFIDENTIALITY AGREEMENT' are written in big bold letters at the top.

"Finn, we want to offer you something but first," he slides a pen over as well. "We have to protect our interests. You understand, right?"

Finn carefully eyes the paper before glancing back at them. "Let me guess, you guys represent Rey Skywalker, right?"

The both of them nod, albeit a bit reluctantly, and Finn throws his hands up, not even wanting to  _touch_  that agreement.

"Listen, I know your client has been on a downswing lately but if this is some sort of meeting where you ask me to do a sextape with her as some sort of publicity stunt, I'm gonna have to decline."

Miss Organa laughs, which still isn't really a denial. "Finn, I promise you it isn't a sextape. And if you sign the paper, then we can tell you what it actually is."

Finn is wary. He's heard many a story about shady production companies and agents and the lengths they will go to for their clients. He wants no part in any of that craziness.

 _But_  he is awfully curious. He can always say no if it's something really outrageous.

With a sigh, he takes the pen and scribbles down his signature. Now even if they  _are_  offering him the chance to be in a sextape with an award winning actress, he legally can't talk about it.

"We are prepared to offer you eight million dollars to date Rey Skywalker."

And suddenly the sextape doesn't seem like such a crazy thing.

Finn snorts, despite the very serious looks on Mr. Dameron and Miss Organa's faces.

"Is this one of those silly prank shows? Like am I supposed to agree to this and then Rey comes out and we all have a big laugh and everyone hopes that show of lightheartedness does enough to get the public to stop thinking she's a frigid narcissist with a drinking problem?"

Mr. Dameron's eyes widen at Finn's brutally honest description of Rey, which he really didn't mean to let out.

"We know Miss Skywalker's reputation of late hasn't been the most  _glowing_ ," and if that isn't the understatement of the year. "But we're hopeful if people see her in a happy, loving relationship with a normal guy like yourself, it'll change people's opinions."

Finn frowns. These people are actually serious.

"So you want to  _pay me_  to  _date her_?" Finn asks, just for clarification.

"Yes, exactly!" Poe nods before frowning and shaking his head. "Well, actually, no. You'll be ' _dating_ ' her but you two won't actually be a real couple. It'll all pretty much be carefully orchestrated for you. From dates to vacations to public appearances - all you have to do is show up and play your role."

They are both still staring at him, completely stone faced. No one's cracking a smile or is showing a hint of breaking out into laughter. Finn doesn't think he sees any hidden cameras - but why would he if they're, y'know,  _hidden_  - and no camera crew has yet to burst in and tell him he's being pranked or punk'd or whatever it is they're calling it now.

These two are legitimately one-hundred percent serious about this. They are offering him millions of dollars to fake-date Rey  _freakin'_  Skywalker.

This has to be the most insane thing he's ever heard.

"Yeah, it's just - I can't do this for you guys," Finn says. "I mean the money sounds nice but offering myself up as a pawn in the plan to make your client appear more favorable just isn't something I'm interested in. Maybe you guys should invest all this money and energy into getting her some real help?"

Mr. Dameron shifts in his chair, a determined look on his face. "Finn, this is about more than just money for you, okay? If you're seen with Rey Skywalker that could open up all sorts of doors for you. Casting directors are gonna want their hands on the guy dating  _the_  hottest young actress in Hollywood! This could be just as beneficial for you as it is for her."

Finn scoffs. "And what about when it's all over? Surely you guys only plan for this to last a few months, just until the headlines about her take a more positive tone, so what happens when we ' _break up_ '? Then I become the asshole that broke sweet little Rey Skywalker's heart. I'm not quite interested in that narrative either."

"Actually," Miss Organa interjects. "Per the contract,  _she_  gets to be the one that breaks up with  _you_. Amicably, of course. She doesn't want there to be bad blood."

He can't stop himself from rolling his eyes. They really have this all planned out with a contract and everything. He can't be around these people any longer.

"Alright, well, I'm flattered by the interest but," Finn stands from the table. He can't believe he wasted his time here. This wasn't even a legit audition. "I'm going to have to decline. It was cool to be considered, though."

As he walks toward the door he hears the sound of shuffling chairs and footsteps following him. Mr. Dameron claps a hand on his shoulder to keep him from leaving.

"Hey, just - promise me you won't completely rule this out, alright? At least think about it?" He leans in toward Finn and drops his voice to a whisper. "And just so you know, when we laid out all the headshots of potential boyfriends,  _you_  were her first choice."

He follows it up with a wink and a charming smile as if that's supposed to make Finn feel better.

(Which, it actually totally does because despite appearing like he's this tough guy with strong morals, it  _is_  flattering to think Rey Skywalker decided that he would make for the most appealing fake-boyfriend. His ego has never felt quite so good.)

"Oh and I think this goes without saying, but you're the only person besides us two and Rey that knows about this arrangement so if we hear about this in the press, we  _will_  sue and ruin your entire life."

He even follows his  _threats_  up with a wink and smile. Finn can't leave this place quickly enough.

After one last smile-and-nod to the two of them, Finn walks out of the boardroom and out of the building.

He's actually sort of glad he can't tell anyone about this because, even if he could, he doesn't think anyone would even believe him.

* * *

It takes a really bad audition and two weeks of thinking to get Finn to call Poe Dameron and Leia Organa.

It all started when his agency sent him to read for the lead role in one of those straight-to-streaming shows. Finn had pretty much nailed it; he earned himself a callback and the role was all but his until -

Until the studio producing the show hired a director who was desperate for the show to be a hit so instead of hiring Finn, they chose to hire the model-turned-actor son of a famous fashion designer because they figured his last name alone would bring way more attention to the show than Finn's.

That was the moment Finn (begrudgingly) knew Poe Dameron was right. Things were tough in this business. Talent alone didn't always get you places. Sometimes it was about the people you knew and -  _boy_ , Rey Skywalker is a helluva person to know.

So he mulled it over for weeks. He weighed the pros and cons to himself - since he couldn't tell anyone about the situation and ask for advice - and came to the conclusion that maybe, just maybe, this crazy arrangement would actually stand to help him in the long run.

Surely he could put aside his morals for a little while for the sake of eight million dollars and the chance to get his foot in the proverbial door.

When Finn called, Poe and Leia -  _"please, since we're going to be working together, feel free to call us Poe and Leia"_ , he had said over the phone - sounded all too pleased to be hearing from him. Thankfully they spared him any I-told-you-so's and simply asked for him to return to the building they first had their meeting so they could go over the contract.

They assured him it was to be a quick, painless meeting just used to fill him in on details and iron out any issues but even now, sitting in the boardroom knowing full well what's about to happen, Finn still feels as nervous as he did the first time he was here.

After making him wait almost half an hour - at least this time the receptionist gave him a cup of coffee even though it tasted like rust - the two of them walk into the boardroom, all smiles with a large binder in each of their respective hands.

"Finn! Our little lifesaver!" Poe greets him with an actual  _hug_. "How are you today?"

Honestly, he probably could be better.

"Doing great," he lies. "How about you two?"

"A lot better now that we finally got you on board," Leia smiles as she motions toward the chair behind him. "Please, sit. Make yourself comfortable."

Comfortable seems like a far-fetched thing to be right now but he'll give it his best shot.

Poe opens up his binder first. It's big and orange with white lettering across the front. "So before we get into signing all the boring confidentiality stuff - you can't tell anyone about the arrangement during and/or once it's over blah blah blah - let's get down to the nitty-gritty details of your and Miss Skywalker's relationship."

Finn swallows the lump in his throat. He's doing this. He's actually doing this.

Over the next couple of minutes, Poe goes over almost every aspect - they really  _do_  have this planned down to a tee - of what's to be his new relationship. He went over social media habits and appearances and an apparent, mandatory scheduled vacation and living arrangements and something called an ' _intimacy clause_ '.

Basically, Poe detailed exactly how the next six months - give or take depending on how the relationship is received - of Finn's life is to go.

"Wait, so," Finn is flipping through the copy of the contract Poe gave him now that he was allowed to ask questions. "I have to move out of my apartment and live with Rey?"

"Yes and no," Leia says. "The rent in your apartment will continue to be paid so long as the contract is valid, but you will be staying in Rey's home until this is over."

"In the guest room, of course." Poe adds with a good-natured smile.

Finn frowns, turning the page to the rule that confused him the most. "Which brings me to this intimacy thingy - "

"I know my explanation of that wasn't the best and that the wording is a little fuzzy in the contract, but the clause simply just means that if you and Rey become a legitimate couple, which I honestly doubt will happen, then you forfeit your eight million dollars. There's no point in paying her  _actual_  boyfriend, right?" Poe clarifies and, yeah. Finn can see the logic in that.

And then, just because he's him and he can't  _not_  sign without asking them this particular question...

"And, y'know, how does, uh, Miss Skywalker feel about all this?" His question seemed to have taken them by surprise. Whether they weren't expecting him to ask or didn't expect for him to care, he can't be sure. "Because this whole scheme is great and all, but if she's against it I'm not gonna help you guys force her to participate."

It's Leia who speaks first. Poe still looks (emotionally moved, maybe?) rocked.

"I won't lie to you, Finn," she sighs. That isn't a great sign. "She isn't too happy about doing this but I assure you, Rey doesn't do anything she doesn't want to. This isn't her most favorite of our ideas to get her back in people's good graces but she values her career too much not to at least try."

That's good, he guesses. As long as she was semi-on board, that meant one less thing his conscious had to worry about.

"So," Poe starts, seemingly coming back to life. "Any other questions before we get to signing?"

 _Yeah_ , he thinks.  _Just about a million of 'em_.

Finn smiles, ignoring the little voice in his head that's trying to tell him what a terrible idea this is. "I just think I better start signing before I come to my senses and change my mind."

Poe and Leia laugh - half genuine, half worried he might actually back out - before handing him a pen so he could scribble his name on the various dotted lines.

Once it's done and everything is signed and dated and notated, Finn lets out a long, winded breath. Leia and Poe are saying something - he can see their mouths moving - but he can't actually hear them over the rushing blood in his ears.

This  _should_  be simple. He's literally being paid millions of dollars to live in a mansion and hold hands in public with an award winning actress for a few months. He shouldn't be having this much of a moral dilemma over it but he is.

But if Rey is okay with it and her people are okay with it then Finn supposes he can at least pretend to be okay with it too for the sake of improving his own career and becoming eight million dollars richer.

* * *

Apparently once the contract was signed, there was to be no wasted time in starting things.

Finn was allowed to go back to his apartment to pack some things for his stay - how does one even pack when they don't really know how long they're staying? - which afterwards a car picked him up and whisked him away to the fancy part of the city. The hills were huge and the houses were just as big. Everything seemed to be on another level of grandeur here. Every neighborhood was gated and every car in every driveway was one of luxury. He didn't know how he was possibly going to fit in.

(Because this was going to be more than just holding hands at premieres or sharing cheek-kisses in the line at Whole Foods while the paparazzi snap a photo.

Finn was going to have to be a  _convincing_  boyfriend.)

When the car stopped in front of the house he assumed was Rey's, Finn was...pleasantly surprised. It was big, of course, but smaller than the surrounding homes. It seemed like something bought to actually live in, not just to show off.

"Do you need help with your bags, young man?" The driver asks and Finn assumes it's because they've been sitting there for a couple minutes and he hasn't moved yet.

"No," he swallows. Once he gets out, this all becomes real. More real than it was before when all he did was sign a piece of paper. "Uh, no thanks. I should be fine."

Finn reaches into his wallet to grab a ten dollar bill and hands it over to the driver who simply refuses because apparently whoever hired him to pick up and drop off Finn already tipped him. They were even in control of  _that_.

After stepping out of the car and gathering his bags from the trunk, Finn walks up the few steps to the front door.

Should he knock? Does he  _have_  to knock? He wonders which would be weirder: knocking, or  _not_  knocking? Why didn't Leia and Poe just give him a key? Unless, of course, they expected him to knock when he arrived. In which case he should -

Just as Finn is coming close to a decision - he was gonna knock; better polite than sorry - the door swung open and -  _holy shit_  he's standing right in front of Rey  _friggin'_  Skywalker.

"So," she folds her arms across her chest as she leans against the doorjamb. He doesn't think he's breathing. "Are you the one meant to be my boyfriend?" 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for some strange reason i always feel compelled to explain myself whenever i post a new fic so feel free to skip this nonsense but for those of you who are curious...
> 
> so i literally read the synopsis for this tv show, didn't actually watch it, and decided to write an entire fic based off it. 'cause that's apparently how i roll. not too sure how many chapters this'll turn out to be or if the rating will stick (knowing me, it probably won't) or even what /real/ direction i want this to go in. basically i don't know anything and im hoping this just all works itself out in the end. pray for me y'all.
> 
> anyway, i hope you all liked it (or at least are intrigued by it??) and if you did (or even if you didn't tbh) make sure to leave a comment or kudos! thanks so much for reading!!


	2. ii.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> finn meets rey.

Finn remembers the first time he ever saw Rey Skywalker act quite vividly.

It was a few years ago, back when she was just an up-and-coming starlet who had landed the lead role in this premium cable drama-fantasy show. That particular genre was never really his cup of tea but after seeing her face - her very _attractive_ face - plastered on billboards all around town, he decided to give it a shot.

Halfway through the first episode, he wanted to give it up. He'd been sitting on his couch for thirty minutes and so far all he'd seen were guys sword fighting and witches casting spells on aforementioned sword fighters. It wasn't until Rey's character - a princess in the high realm chosen to lead her people into war - showed up that Finn found himself hooked.

Her first set of lines was a rousing monologue meant to rally the troops. Never before had he had been so captivated by someone onscreen. He hung on her every word, was mesmerized completely by her actions - he was utterly taken by this beautiful, ridiculously talented actress.

Immediately after the episode ended, Finn took to Google to find out more about her. He didn't find much, only a Twitter account without very many tweets and an Instagram page that featured more photos of nature than selfies. He read a few articles and watched a couple interviews on YouTube and by the end of the night he knew he had a proper celebrity crush.

It wasn't just her looks - although her image _may_ have occasionally popped in his head over the next few months whenever he had a few moments of _alone time_ \- but he just loved the way she commanded the screen. Honestly, he admired her work, her skill more than anything.

Now here he was, years later, standing in front of his long-standing celebrity crush watching her pretty mouth move and not actually hearing any of the words coming out of it.

Finn blinks, willing himself to come back to the present. "I'm sorry, what?"

Rey smiles - dimples and all; he thinks he might never breathe again - and repeats herself. "I asked if you were okay. You just sort of stood there with your mouth open for a second."

"Oh, right - sorry. I just - " he awkwardly rubs at the back of his neck, not really able to come up with a good excuse for zoning out the way he did.

"Have you never met anyone famous before?" She asks, teasingly.

"That obvious, huh?" He winces and she laughs, easy and effortless. Finn didn't think he'd ever think of words like that to describe _a laugh_.

Rey's eyes give him a once-over before she nods for him to come inside. He knows she's seen his face at least once thanks to Poe and Leia parading around his headshot for her like some low-budget version of _The Bachelorette_ , but aside from that, this was really her first time actually seeing him. And not to be conceited or full of himself, but he thinks she just may like what she's seen.

When Finn steps inside, he follows her down a long hallway into the living room, taking note of everything he sees on the short walk.

The house seems rather big for someone to live in alone but he remembers reading on some gossip site that her home in Los Angeles wasn't really her _home_. The site claimed that she divided her time between LA and the UK, where most of her father's family resided. Still, the house was large and impressive.

"So, what was your name again?" She asks, walking around the corner of the living room into the connecting kitchen. Finn doesn't bother to follow. The display case filled to the brim with various awards seems far more interesting at the moment. "Sorry I kind of have a shit memory, which is ironic considering my profession."

"Uh," Finn runs his fingertips over the front of _an actual_ Emmy. He always hoped he would get to see one of these in real life. "Finn. My name's Finn."

"Finn," he hears her say, her voice closer than it was a moment ago. When he looks over his shoulder he sees she's back from the kitchen and sitting on the expensive-looking cream coloured couch. She says his name a few more times to herself, like she's testing out the weight of it on her tongue. "What did Poe and Leia tell you about me, Finn?"

He shrugs, now moving his attention over to a strange shaped fan-voted award. "Not much. Just that you weren't too keen about this whole arrangement."

She hums in response. "Well is there anything you would _like_ to know about me?"

 _Quite a bit, actually_ , he thinks but doesn't actually say.

Finn would like to know if she really called her co-stars ' _talentless assholes_ ' or if that was something taken out of context. Although, he doesn't think a phrase like that can actually be taken out of context. If she did, though, he'd like to know why.

He'd like to know how much time they'll be spending together, if any, when they're not in public. He'd like to know what room he'll be staying in. He'd like to know just how difficult she plans on being toward him, if at all. He'd like to know if he can hold her Emmy.

There's a lot Finn would like to know, but for the sake of avoiding any potential unpleasantness, he doesn't ask any of it.

"Not really," he says, finally turning away from the display case. "I guess I just wanna know when and how we get this thing started."

Rey flashes him a sardonic smile. "Luckily for you, Poe sent me a whole email full of instructions." She pats the empty space next to her on the couch before taking her phone from the pocket of the grey hoodie she wore.

Finn sits - at a distance he thinks is large enough to let her know he's not going to invade her personal space just because they're fake-dating, but also not so large that she thinks he wants nothing to do with her - and peers over to try and read the email on her phone screen.

" _Rey, sorry I couldn't be there for your and Finn's first meeting but duty called and you know I always pick up on the first ring_ ," she reads. " _The first thing you two need to do is take a photo for your social media feeds. Send me whatever it is you plan on posting before you actually do so I can approve. Take all the time you need but this preferably should be done by tomorrow night. Looking forward to seeing it._ "

Finn nods, digesting the little bit of info. He's also slightly distracted by the way Rey smells of pineapples and (faintly) of expensive alcohol. "So basically we take a selfie, send it to Poe for the thumbs up and then post. That's pretty quick and painless for our first couple-y assignment. We could take it now, if you - "

"Can I ask you something?" She says suddenly. Her phone has been placed back into her pocket - guess they won't be taking that picture now - and she's turned slightly to face him.

"Uh, sure."

"Why'd you agree to do this?"

Logically, Finn knew there was a good chance she would want to know something like that. He also knew there was an equally good chance that she wouldn't care. Turns out he should have bet on the former.

"The pros outweighed the cons." He answers with a shrug.

Rey tilts her head curiously. "There were cons?"

"I mean," _Do not answer that_ , the little voice in his head yells. _It is a trap!_ "There were a few."

Thankfully, she doesn't push. She simply smiles wryly at him before standing.

"Can you drive?"

"Yeah, but - "

"Cool, then you can take us to go pick up some dinner." She grabs a pair of keys from the glass bowl on the nearby table at the end of the couch and tosses them to him. "I'm sort of in the mood for burgers but since it's your first night in _Casa de Skywalker_ , I'll let you pick the meal."

Finn looks down at the keys - according to the keychain, they belong to a Mercedes - in his hand. "You want us to go out? Like, together?" Rey nods as if it _wasn't_ as big of a deal as it actually was. "But people are gonna see us and I'm pretty sure we're not quite at that stage in Poe's plan yet."

Rey groans, loud and overdramatic, and rolls her eyes. "Poe's plan is stupid, okay? An Instagram photo isn't going to do anything but make it obvious that this," she motions between the two of them. "Is staged. I told him that if I was going to do this that there would be a good chance I would disregard his entire plan to do whatever I wanted to, so he knew the risks. Which brings me back to my original question, what are the two of us going to eat?"

He can see the logic in her argument. Normally when a super-famous celebrity gets a new partner, their first instinct isn't to spam their social media feed with selfies flaunting their new relationship. In fact, in most cases, the more private the relationship or the more lowkey they attempt to be, the more attention they'll probably actually end up attracting.

Plus, Rey is the one Finn's meant to be dating, not Poe. Probably best to stay on her good side and agree with her.

"Alright," he starts, standing from the couch. "How does pizza sound?" 

* * *

The problem with (fake) dating a celebrity like Rey is that Finn already has this... _image_ of her in his head.

He's read all the articles detailing her on-set antics, seen all the unflattering photographs of her dancing on top of tables in nightclubs after far too many drinks and heard all the stories about how much of a ticking time bomb she is. And no matter how much he tries to ignore all that stored information in order to give her the chance to start with a clean slate with him, he can't help but wonder if (when) she'll make that side of herself known to him.

"I would say you drive like my grandmother," Rey's voice cuts through the silence in the car. Finn tightens his already white-knuckled grip on the wheel. "But even she manages to drive faster than thirty miles per hour."

Finn lets out a forced laugh and slowly starts to accelerate. Maybe forty will be fast enough for her.

"You can relax around me, Finn. You know that, right? I'm not gonna bite your head off if you talk to me."

"I know," he shrugs, even though he actually didn't _fully_ know that. "It's just I'm not sure what we're supposed to talk about. We don't exactly have that much in common."

"How will you know that for sure if we never talk?" And, yeah. She makes a good point there. "Okay, what's your favorite movie?"

Without much thought - he really should have thought about the question before he spoke - Finn blurts out, " _Demeter's Daughter_."

"Interesting," Rey snorts, reaching into the cup holder to remove a pair of sunglasses to put on. "So your favorite movie just so happens to not only be one of mine, but the only one of my movies where I have a nude scene."

Finn nearly bites his tongue trying to get his protests out as quickly as possible. "No! No, it's - it isn't like that at all. I actually do genuinely like that movie. That fact that you're in it is purely coincidental. And, honestly, I didn't even remember that scene was in there."

He's lying. _Of course_ he remembers that scene.

"I don't believe you," she says matter-of-factly. "The script was shit, my character was treated terribly throughout - the only reason I can see for you liking it is that I'm topless in it."

He swallows, his mouth suddenly extremely dry. It's not like _that scene_ isn't a plus but - but he actually does like it for non-topless reasons.

"Fine," he sighs. "Maybe that one isn't my _favorite_ but I do actually like it. My favorite part is your long monologue toward the end."

She hums thoughtfully, placing her right foot up on the dashboard. "I always hated that part."

Well. So much for that.

They ride the rest of the way in relative silence, save for the low hum of the radio. Finn spends most of the time mentally trying to figure Rey out. She's guarded, that much he knows, but he doesn't think it's for any of the reasons she tries to project. He doesn't think she's built up these walls around her solely because she is who she is and she wants to protect her privacy from people who may not always have her best interest at heart. No, he thinks it might be because of something else entirely.

But whether or not he'll be able to figure it all out - does he even _want_ to? - remains to be seen. He's only meant to stick around in her life for a few months, no sense in getting all emotionally involved, right?

When Finn pulls up to the pizza place they've chosen to pick up their dinner at, he's surprised (when he really shouldn't be) to see the handful of grown men dressed in black with high-powered cameras standing outside of the building.

He looks over at Rey who seems thoroughly irritated just by the sight of them. They're already snapping photos, some of them are even yelling things he can't quite make out.

"Do you want me to go in alone? That way you won't have to deal with them?" He offers. Even through the dark lenses of the sunglasses on her face, he can tell she's somewhat taken aback by his offer.

She shakes her head, unbuckling her seatbelt. "No, I can't throw you in the lion's den all by yourself. That would be extremely inconsiderate of me." She's just about to open her door before she pauses to turn back to him. "I should let you know now, though, that they're probably gonna say some shitty stuff and act like total assholes, but under no circumstances are you to engage, okay?"

Finn can't promise anything but he nods anyway. He can't say he totally agrees with that tactic, but she's the expert here. He'll do as she says.

Thankfully on the short walk from the car to the pizzeria nothing shitty is yelled at them. However, the group of paps _do_ act like assholes.

Even though she told him not to engage, Finn can't help but want to retaliate against the one guy who tried getting a little too close to Rey for his liking. Against his better instincts - which were telling him to shove the guy out of the way - Finn ignored the annoyance and placed his hand on the small of Rey's back to try to both guide and shield her from those creeps.

Once they're inside, Rey pushes her sunglasses up atop her head and steps out of his temporary hold.

"Do they always try and get in your face like that?"

"Sometimes," she shrugs, trying (and failing) to seem unbothered by the whole situation. "But that's the price you pay for fame, right?"

No, he thinks. It's not. And he wants to tell her that, that just because she's Rey Skywalker and that she has an Emmy and that she's probably one of the most recognizable young actresses in Hollywood doesn't give anyone the right to invade her privacy like that.

But seeing as how the few customers seated at various tables in the restaurant were already whispering and pulling out their phones to no doubt try and sneak a photo, Finn decides to save his spiel for later.

For now, he had to focus on trying to order dinner in a totally normal manner whilst avoid thinking about the fact that he was probably going to be the subject of many blurry Twitter photos posted tonight. 

* * *

After picking up two boxes of pizza - pepperoni for Finn, Hawaiian for Rey - the two of them headed back to her place to eat. They would have eaten at the restaurant - it was pretty damn nice for just being a pizza parlor, after all - but after having to take selfies with nearly half the people in the building, Finn suggested maybe getting their meal to-go would be a better idea.

Dinner with Rey turned out to be relatively nice.

He poked fun at her for enjoying fruit on her pizza. She poked back at him for not being more adventurous with his food. He asked all about what it's like to film a television show and she answered his questions honestly, without sarcasm or any hint that he was annoying her in any way.

They joked and laughed and it was becoming increasingly hard for him to imagine her behaving like the she-devil so many tabloids tried to paint her out to be. He actually started to think that maybe this arrangement wouldn't be so bad. Maybe he could actually leave out of it with a friend. Or at the very least an acquaintance.

Halfway through Rey telling him the story of how she pranked her co-star, Bodhi - yeah, _that_ Bodhi; Bodhi Rook, aka, Finn's idol - her phone starts buzzing incessantly like someone's sent her about a dozen text messages in a row.

Rey picks up her phone off of the table and smiles into the rim of the glass she held in her hand. "Guess the photos of us picking up dinner finally hit the internet. Poe is _pissed_."

Finn gives a half-hearted smile. She's laughing but she can actually afford that luxury. He's the one with eight million dollars on the line.

"I have never seen him use so many emojis before," she adds. "And quite eloquently, too."

With a long, deep sigh, she raises her phone and instructs him to smile, which he does. Perhaps a bit awkwardly, though.

"What was that?" He asks, watching her tap away at her phone.

" _That_ was me preventing Poe from having a stroke." She turns her phone toward him and now Finn is the one who almost has a stroke. It's a photo of him grinning on her Snapchat story with a caption that just contained a bunch of pink hearts. He knows she has thousands of fans that follow her on that particular social media platform. Thousands of people will see that picture of him. That's...not intimidating at all.

"So I guess we're Snapchat-official now." It's a weak attempt at a joke but Rey laughs anyway, out of pity, he assumes.

"Yep, I'm afraid now everyone knows about Rey Skywalker's cute new boyfriend."

Finn does his best not to smile - and not to tease her about speaking in the third person - because -

"You think I'm cute?"

And Rey - cool, calm, has-probably-never-been-flustered-in-her-life _Rey_ \- actually blushes.

"What? No I don't - well, I mean, I sort of do, but - " She's sputtering, fingers fidgeting with the edge of the napkin in front of her. He supposes he should have assumed she found him attractive since she was the one to pick him as the guy to be her pretend boyfriend, but still. Rey Skywalker thinks he's cute and is doing a helluva lot of blushing trying to deny it. "I'm merely saying what I think the fans are gonna say. And I think that they will think that you're cute."

He shrugs. He figures that's about as much as he's gonna be able to get out of her so, for now, he'll take it.

"And since they're going to think I'm cute, and they obviously think you're cute," Finn leans back comfortably in his chair. "They'll probably go on and on about how cute of a couple we make, right?"

Rey narrows her eyes at him, a playful gleam twinkling in them. It would seem that she's gotten over her initial embarrassment and is keen to joke around with him about it now. "Oh yeah, they'll probably even create a trending topic about it."

"Hashtag _FinnRey_ , maybe?"

"They don't know your name, though. Just your adorable face."

"Hmm, that's right," he muses. "How about hashtag _ReysCuteNewBoyfriend_?"

"Oh, I rather like that one. In fact, I hope it trends worldwide."

"So do I." Finn tries - and fails - to keep a straight face. The sound of his laugh mixes with Rey's and soon they're both completely in stitches.

But as funny as it was, as great as it felt to laugh and joke with her, the seriousness of the situation wasn't lost on him. They had more or less ' _gone public_ ' now and there was a lot that came along with that.

People were probably going to be combing through social media trying to find out just who he is. And when people do find out, there are probably going to be a few who will keep digging until they find something they deem 'expose worthy'. His friends - he only has a few, but still - are probably going to try and get in touch with him to find out just why he failed to mention he was in a relationship with a celebrity. And - oh god, he definitely should have told his mom about this. Poe and Leia's little secrecy pact be damned, _why_ didn't he at least warn his parents about this?

There's clearly a lot Finn didn't think of nor consider and thinking about it now, all at once, is getting a bit overwhelming.

"Are you okay, Finn?" Rey reaches across the table, her hand not quite reaching his. It's fine, though. He still appreciates the gesture.

He nods, perhaps too quickly to be convincing. "Yeah, I'm - I'm good." And he doesn't want to pile any unnecessary problems on her plate - which is already full considering all of this is to supposedly _save_ her career - so he gives a small smirk and lifts his chin in the direction of the untouched slice of Hawaiian pizza on her plate. "Just still pretty weirded out by your fruit-dinner."

She briefly looks offended before slowly sliding the plate his way. "Oh, what was that? You want to know if you can try it? Why of course you can, Finn! I thought you'd never ask!"

Finn plays along, of course, and things go back to feeling as easy as they did before Poe interrupted.

Still, there's a small voice in the back of his mind reminding him that first chance he got, he had quite a bit of damage control of his own to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hopefully this wasn't too bad of a chapter. i _think_ i know where i'd like to take this fic so fingers crossed it turns out alright!
> 
> looking forward to any kudos/comments you guys leave!


	3. iii.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> rey gets finn to take a hike.

Surprisingly, it doesn't take Finn very long to settle into Rey's home nor does it take him long to settle into his new daily routine.

Because of her job and whatnot, Rey is usually up and out of the house before he wakes up. Occasionally he'll catch her leaving her room for the day or walk in on her downstairs in the kitchen making herself a cup of morning tea. If he happens to catch her attention he'll give her a little greeting but other than that, he leaves her be.

Since he isn't keen on spending his newfound downtime all alone twiddling his thumbs, Finn does what he can to entertain himself. Sometimes he'll go for a run through the neighborhood or take an Uber into the city or spend the afternoon floating in the backyard pool while playing with Rey's Nintendo Switch (she won't even know he's touched it; he always puts it back where he found it).

Sometimes, even, he'll pick up where he left off at his old day job - the one he left when  _this_  all came about - and take the little gigs they have for him.

Basically, Finn's new life isn't as glamorous or fast-paced as maybe he thought it would be, but spending the day relaxing and finding new ways to keep himself busy sure beats spending all day on social media reading the things people have to say about him.

After the first photo, Rey took to snapping more pictures of him to post on her social media accounts. That was when he learned the hard way that the comment section was  _not_  a good place to peruse.

Though to be fair, a lot of what people said was positive; there were just certain things that really got under his skin.

Some of those things were the comments aimed at him.

A lot of those things were the comments aimed at Rey.

Her advice to him was to just ignore it. He tries his best.

It was somewhat easy to ignore them, though. They weren't anyone he knew. They were strangers with stupid opinions that spat ridiculous rhetoric who he could easily pretend didn't exist. But once people Finn actually  _knew_  started contacting him about his publicized brush with fame -  _that_  was harder to ignore. 

And it isn't like Finn _wants_ to ignore them it's just - he isn't sure what he's supposed to  _say_  to them. He can't exactly tell them the truth but neither Poe nor Rey have told him what he  _can_  tell people.

What if he's asked how the two of them met or how long they've been together? They've only been doing this for a little over a week and a half and have yet to get their stories straight. And he understands that she's busy but, for the sake of the arrangement, he thinks it's best they sort things out sooner rather than later.

In the end, it's his good friend Slip that ends up being the first person in Finn's personal circle to talk to him.

Slip - a nickname born from his general clumsiness - made a habit of frantically texting him every time Rey would post something new about their 'budding relationship'. After days of ignoring those texts, when he called, Finn decided to bite the bullet and pick up.

"Hey Slip - " The words barely finish leaving Finn's lips before Slip is already rattling off what is surely  _days_  of pent up curiosity.

"Dude,  _what the fuck_ , why are you suddenly all over Rey Skywalker's Snapchat? Literally every time I check her story there's always some picture of you eating with heart emojis everywhere or a video of you hanging out  _in her house_. What the actual hell is going on?" He takes a breath before continuing. Finn can almost see him standing with his phone pressed against his ear and a look of total disbelief on his face. "Are we in some kind of alternate universe where it's totally normal that you're apparently friends with Rey  _fucking_  Skywalker now? And, I mean, are you guys, like, more than friends because that's what's being speculated but I just - ugh,  _what the hell_ , man?"

Finn lifts a shoulder even though Slip can't see. "Does it matter?"

" _Does it matter_?" Slip mocks Finn's question before scoffing. "Of-fucking-course it matters! Your face - the face I'm supposedly friends with - is all over tons of different gossip sites. I've seen your dumb mug on  _E! News_  like six times in the past three days. Do you know how surreal it is to hear everyone wonder who Rey Skywalker's ' _mystery man_ ' is and to actually be the dude who knows him?"

"What can I say? Rey and I are just hanging out. It's casual."

"So I don't hear from you for weeks and when you finally pop back up you're suddenly in a casual relationship with your longstanding celebrity crush?" Well, when he puts it like that, of course it's gonna sound unbelievable. "Yeah, I'm gonna need a little more in the way of details than that."

Finn is still unsure about just how much information he's allowed to give - he'll have to ask Poe about that when he gets the chance - so he sticks to aloof responses.

"Look, Slip, when I'm allowed to tell you more, I will. For now I gotta keep this kind of lowkey," he says. "For Rey's sake."

There's a beat of silence before Slip speaks again. "Can you at least tell me how you guys met? Because I'm still finding it pretty un-freakin'-believable that you just so happen to be ' _hanging out_ ' with the one actress you've been obsessed with for years."

Out of fear that whatever he says could end up not matching up with whatever timeline Poe has come up with for his and Rey's relationship, Finn doesn't answer. He's searching for an out, something to say to get Slip's mind off of the subject, and is (thankfully) given that out in the form of his bedroom door opening.

"Hey," Finn jumps slightly at Rey's intrusion. He sees her glance at the phone against his ear and gives him a little smirk. " _Babe_ ," she drags the affectionate pet name out and says it just loud enough where she knows Slip will be able to hear. "I was just gonna go for a hike and wanted to know if you cared to join?"

There's a loud bit of commotion coming from Slip's end of the line and if he didn't know any better, he would swear it sounded like Slip actually  _fell_.

"Wait, is that her?!" Slip all but yells. "Finn is that - holy shit, she called you  _babe_! You are two are totally a thing, aren't you? Finn you better tell me if you're dating Rey  _goddamn_  Skywalker or so help me god - "

"Slip, I gotta go, buddy. Talk to you later, okay? Cool. Bye." Finn ignores Slip's very loud protests and ends the call. He's certain he'll probably have to deal with that later but for now, he'd very much like to handle this Rey situation.

She's grinning at him, leaning cooly against the doorjamb as if she didn't just do any of that on purpose.

"So, who's Slip?" She asks.

"He's a friend." He answers quickly before getting to a question of his own. "What are you doing here? I thought you had meetings and stuff today."

"I got done quicker than I expected," she shrugs. "I was actually serious about that hike, though. Wanna come with?"

And, yeah, Finn is just a tad ticked at her for that little stunt but she seems kind of down - maybe her meetings didn't go so well? - so he'll be nice and indulge her.

Plus, it isn't like he's got anything better to do other than - thanks to her - aggressively avoid Slip.

"Sure," he answers with a half-smile. "Just let me get changed."

"Alright, sweet," Rey turns on her heel and heads out the door but not before one last tease. "I'll be waiting for you downstairs,  _babe_."

Finn bites the inside of his cheek to prevent himself from smiling.

He will definitely be getting her back for that one.

* * *

He probably would have never pegged her as the type, but, turns out, Rey is totally one of those people that  _loves_  nature. She doesn't tell him this, in fact once they start climbing the rocky hill she doesn't say much to him at all, but he can just  _see_  it on her face.

At first, Finn thought she wasn't talking to him because she didn't have anything to say. Even though it hadn't been very long, he already figured out that she was an easy-going type of person. She could joke and jest, sure, but most of the time Rey was as chill as they come. So for her to spend the whole hike up without letting out so much as a peep doesn't strike him as out of the ordinary until they reach the end of their chosen trail.

The view was beautiful; it overlooked the whole city and at this time of day - when it's not quite night yet but still several hours into the afternoon - it was truly breathtaking. It was something Finn could appreciate but when he looked over at Rey, he could see she more than just appreciated this.

She  _thrived_  off of it.

Finn felt a little intrusive staring at her but she just looked so...peaceful. She didn't even seem to notice he was looking, either. She looked so wrapped up in taking in everything - the light breeze, the smell of the orange-red dirt beneath their boots, the faint chirping of a nearby group of birds - he wondered if she even remembered he was standing beside her at all.

He isn't sure if the novelty wears off (although he seriously doubts that's he case) or if she actually  _does_  remember she brought him along, but after a handful of calming, silent minutes, Rey glances over at him.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Finn fixes his expression - he hadn't even realized he was smiling - into something more neutral.

"No reason. I just didn't take you for the outdoorsy type, that's all. I'm a little surprised by it." He explains.

"Oh, I'm full of surprises, Finn." She says, very tongue-in-cheek. "But do you not like all of this, though? Being outdoors and one with nature and all that?"

He hums, indifferently. "It's nice but I think I might be more of a homebody. I wouldn't mind doing this every once in a while, though."

Rey slides closer to him, playfully knocking her shoulder into his. "Aw, is this your way of cleverly asking to be my hiking buddy?"

"Maybe," he responds, half-jokingly. He really  _wouldn't_  mind coming up here with her every so often. So far it was a pretty pleasant trip. It was exactly what he needed to settle down and reset after the craziness of the past few days.

Which reminds him...

"You know you haven't pointed a camera at me this whole time," he points out. "What's up with that? Already sick of having my gorgeous face all over your Instagram page?"

Rey laughs, albeit humorlessly, and kicks at the rocks near her foot. "I came up here to get away from all that. I share almost everything with everyone and I just wanted to have this moment to myself. And you, of course."

The sentiment actually warms Finn's heart a bit. He's honored that she felt she could invite him to take part in her moment of peace.

"I don't know if you noticed or not," she continues with a sigh. "But today was not a very good day for me. All week I've had meetings upon meetings for different upcoming films and stuff and they've been mostly positive but today was just...bad. It's like, studios like me, they just don't like my baggage."

"Your baggage? What, like the rumors about your partying and stuff?" He asks. She nods. "Seriously? They won't hire you because of that? I've seen people with way worse reps than you get all sorts of opportunities."

"It isn't all rumors, though. There's a little bit of truth behind everything."

She doesn't elaborate and he doesn't push. He's glad she decided to share that with him so he doesn't want to do anything that could jeopardize her feeling comfortable enough to share with him in the future.

They spend a few more moments in an easy silence before she says anything again.

"Poe told me he's thinking about pushing us ahead to ' _Stage Two_ '." Rey says, complete with air quotes.

Finn's brows crease, completely at a lost for what that could possibly entail. Rey has more or less done whatever she's wanted to do since they started this. He assumed Poe would have the good sense to cut his loses and abandon whatever plan he had a long time ago.

"So that means what, like, public appearances?" He guesses. "Or should I prepare to propose to you via a flash mob in the middle of the mall?"

She laughs - a real, genuine, ' _wow-she-just-snorted_ ' laugh - and Finn makes a mental note to (brag) tell Slip how he got Rey Skywalker to laugh so hard she snorted. He's pretty sure that's something to be proud of.

"Oh god, I hope not. Poe's an insane mastermind but I don't think he'd take it  _that_  far. Maybe." Finn certainly hopes not, too. An engagement would surely cost Poe extra. "I think he's gonna schedule us our first real public appearance, which is just an excuse for us to partake in some shameless PDA."

Finn swallows hard. Of course he knew showings of affection would be involved in this whole deal, but he always pictured it further down the line. It's only been a little over a week; if he's being honest, he's still somewhat starstruck over Rey. He doesn't think he's at the point where he can hold her hand and  _not_  look like a total spaz because he's  _holding Rey Skywalker's hand_.

"Wow," she starts. When he looks over at her she has that patented sardonic smirk of hers on her face. "I've never seen someone look so obviously horrified at the mention of being affectionate with me."

"No, it's not that," he scoffs, because he doesn't want her thinking the thought horrifies him. It does quite the opposite, actually. "It's just, we're still getting to know each other. I would have thought Poe would wait until we were more comfortable with one another before he forces us to kiss on the red carpet."

Rey moves to stand in front of him. From this angle - with the coming sunset right behind her - she appears to be illuminated by the setting sun like some sort of angelic apparition that's landed before him. It doesn't really help the conversation.

"No matter what Poe says, we don't have to do anything you don't want to do." She straightens, then, and extends her hand toward him. "We can start slow. Here, hold my hand."

Finn quirks an eyebrow, his hands suddenly feeling more sweaty than they really ought to be. "What? Now?"

"Yes,  _now_. Just - take my hand. I promise you it's not sweaty. Or at least,  _that_  sweaty."

It's just a hand, he reminds himself. It's just a hand attached the wrist, attached to the arm of the very famous person Finn used to could only  _dream_  that he would ever meet.

He needs to get out of his head about this. She's just a person. A regular, normal person. Above all, Rey is  _just a regular, normal person_. He's seen her leave her bedroom in her pajamas and with her hair haphazardly strewn into a ponytail. He's seen her stuff her face with cereal like it's the last bowl she'd ever have. He's heard her extremely interesting snort-laugh.

Rey does the sort of stuff normal people do because she  _is_  a normal person. The fact that she's been on television and in movies doesn't change that. Finn simply needs to remember that.

"Alright," he quickly wipes his palm on his pants - better safe than sorry - and grabs hold of her hand. "Happy?"

"Well, I'd be happier if you didn't hold my hand like it's a soggy napkin you really don't want to touch." Finn rolls his eyes because he is  _not_  holding her hand like that. At least, he doesn't think he is. "Just pretend I'm some girl you have a crush on and you're finally getting your chance to be close to me."

He's tempted to tell her that scenario isn't that much of a stretch but he decides it'd probably be best if he kept that to himself.

But, nonetheless, he tries again. This time, he tries to imagine there is no binding contract forcing him to do this. He tries to imagine that he and Rey are actually legitimately in that awkward 'pre-dating' phase and this is just a normal one of those early-relationship dates. He thinks about what he'd naturally do in this situation.

Finn steps closer to her, the toes of his shoes nearly stepping on hers, and lets his fingertips dance down her arm until his fingers are comfortably threaded with hers. He lets his thumb drag across her knuckles as he gives her hand a small squeeze.

"Better?" He asks.

Rey answers with the smallest of smiles and by giving  _his_  hand a gentle squeeze. It's nice and for a brief, fleeting moment it feels...genuine. It isn't, though, and Finn makes sure to remind himself of that  _several_  times.

They stand there, hand-in-hand, enjoying the impending sunset - the same sunset that neither one of them are actually paying any attention to due to the fact that they're sort of staring at each other - before the distinct sound of a shutter click ruins attracts both of their attentions.

"Oh look," he follows her eyes to the group of teenagers failing to discreetly point their smartphone at them. She drops his hand instantly. "Poe's probably gonna love this photo op."

Finn hates that their small slice of solitude was intruded upon. With the few clicks of an iPhone's camera, they were thrust right back into the real world. The world of fake relationships and carefully planned out social media posts and hand holding that probably won't feel the same as it did now.

Rey looks down at the smartwatch on her wrist after another long glance at the horizon and lets out a long sigh.

"We should start heading back, anyway." She says. "Poe's supposed to be coming over tonight to talk so we should probably get home before he does otherwise he'll just rummage through the fridge and I'll have to go grocery shopping again, which I  _loathe_."

Finn lets out a light laugh at the thought of a sour-faced Rey trudging through the dairy section at the local Whole Foods.

"Alright, if you insist." When she takes off ahead of him, he makes a point to loudly clear his throat. She turns back to him with a questioning look to which he responds by wiggling the fingers on his outstretched hand. "Forgetting something,  _babe_?" 

Rey makes a concerted effort to hide the small curve of her lips. She takes his hand, locking their fingers and drags him all the way back to the car.

Being up here, away from staged social media photos and arranged fake relationships, was nice but he supposes they couldn't have hid forever. They were going to have to return to real life sooner or later.

But if they could carve out some time to do this every once in a while, if they could just hike up a hill and escape the craziness that they've agreed to be a part of for a little bit and just talk like two normal people, Finn thinks that would be more than alright.

* * *

Turns out, Rey was right.

When Poe came over - and actually  _did_  eat a bunch out of the fridge; clearly their presence didn't deter him in the slightest - he explained what he had planned with the kind of gleam in his eye that reminded Finn of Dr. Frankenstein.

In all of his infinite publicist wisdom, Poe thought it would be great for Rey and Finn to make their first public appearance as a couple at an upcoming charity tennis tournament. It was an event that would only last a couple hours and would be beneficial for Rey to attend for a whole slew of reasons.

Finn agreed, mainly because he doesn't think he was contractually able to decline, and so did Rey. She was mostly silent during Poe's pitch which was slightly worrying. He would have expected her to at least put up a little bit of a fight. It wasn't like her to be so cooperative when it came to Poe's plans.

Later that night, after Poe's left and after he and Rey have eaten dinner in separate rooms because she sort fell into this  _mood_ , Finn finds himself trying to quietly sneak downstairs for a glass of water because he's having trouble getting to sleep and water usually helps him remedy that.

When he reaches the bottom of the staircase and tiptoes into the living room, he's a little surprised to see Rey sat on the couch, flicking through channels that were mostly playing infomercials.

"Hey," he approaches her carefully, just in case this is some weird kind of sleepwalking. She nods, acknowledging she's heard him and such but doesn't say anything. "Can't sleep?" He asks.

Rey sighs, stopping on a channel that was promoting some sort of strange looking food processor. "Not really," she runs a hand through her hair before turning to him, a curious pout on her lips. "Can I tell you something? Well, not something.  _Two_  things, actually."

"Sure. Anything." Finn nods and perches himself on the arm of the couch. She turns to him fully, a pensive look on her face.

"Well first, I hate public appearances," Rey says with a forced laugh. "Which is weird considering they're sort of part of my job, but I - I just  _hate_  being interviewed and having people take photos of me and, ugh,  _mingling_. And now I can't stop thinking about this whole tennis tournament thing and all the ways I could screw it up."

Finn moves from the arm of the couch to sit beside her. He thinks this conversation might be more effective with less space between them.

"And second," she continues. "I've never told anyone that, yet for some reason, I felt like I could tell you. Can't stop thinking about that either."

"Okay first, you're not going to screw anything up. If anything, I'm probably gonna be the one to screw something up." He wholeheartedly believes that. If anything were to go wrong, it would mostly likely be him doing the wrongdoing. "And second, I just have a trustworthy face. People trust my face with secrets."

Rey laughs at him, more genuine this time and Finn's glad he could make her smile. He's been getting a lot of joy out of doing that.

"But seriously," he says. "What did Poe say again? We do an interview, take a couple of photos on the arrival carpet and then we watch some tennis players raise money for a children's hospital. I  _promise_  you that you will be fine. And if not, I'll be right there to help you out of whatever mess you get yourself into."

Rey smiles again - there goes that swell of pride in his chest - and reaches over to grab his hand and tangle their fingers together. And when Finn frowns at their joined hands, she simply tells him it's their thing now and - wow. He has a  _thing_  with Rey Skywalker now.

It's then Finn realizes this whole arrangement will get easier not only because soon he'll start seeing Rey as a normal person rather than just his celebrity crush, but because soon she'll be more than both of those things.

Soon, she'll be his  _friend_.

And knowing he's doing this - this whole fake relationship business - for a friend rather than someone he's been crushing on will make things considerably less awkward for him and will probably make their 'relationship' appear more genuine. Which would be a win-win for everyone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i'm (clearly) struggling to pace the progression of their relationship properly. i definitely don't want this fic to turn into a slowburn, but i also don't want to make it seem unrealistic by having them fall for each other overnight, y'know? so if the pace i have it at now isn't doing it for ya, please let me know in the comments!!
> 
> and as always, thanks for reading!


	4. iv.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tennis tournaments make for interesting bets.

Over the next few days, Finn and Rey hang out a whole lot more. She isn't as busy as she was before which gives them  _both_  a lot of downtime to try and fill together.

They try a lot of different activities and it's nice to spend a little bit of time together actually getting to know one another. Of course, though, because she is who she is, whenever they do go out they're usually photographed. Poe thinks it's great. Finn respectfully disagrees. Still, their outings allow him to get more and more comfortable in Rey's presence. Pretty soon, he starts to think this will be the easiest couple million bucks he'll ever earn.

After playing a few rounds of mini golf the previous day - Rey is  _terrible_  at it, but watching her swear like a sailor while trying to finesse a tiny fluorescent yellow ball into a giant alligator's mouth provides Finn with all the entertainment he could ever ask for - they decide to actually do something productive and go shopping for something to wear to the upcoming tennis tournament.

And it's not like he just  _assumed_  that because Rey's a woman that she would enjoy shopping but he certainly didn't think she would dislike it as much as she does. Finn could only laugh at the way she pouted as they entered the fancy shop. He, on the other hand, actually happened to really love shopping.

"So you're, like, really into this whole shopping thing, aren't you?" Rey asks, trying to keep a straight face as she watches Finn marvel at a rack of designer sports coats.

"Oh, you have no idea." He pulls one off the rack and holds it up to himself. It's a cream color and doesn't do him any justice. "I  _love_  fashion. Which, I'm actually a little offended that you couldn't tell given that I'm always so sharply dressed."

She scoffs, picking up a dark blue coat to hand over to him. "Finn, I think in the month I've known you, you've only ever worn jeans  _once_. Everything else has been sweatpants, joggers, and pajama bottoms."

And, yeah, okay, that's true but it's not like that's such a horrible thing. His joggers, sweats and PJ bottoms are still pretty fashionable.

"That's only because I haven't been given the chance to actually  _go_  anywhere. Now that we're going to this tennis thing, I can show you just how sharp of a dresser I really am."

"Speaking of that, what  _do_  you do when I'm not around?" She asks, curiously. "You know, besides playing with my Switch and  _never_  charging it when you're done."

Finn frowns. In hindsight, he probably could've covered his tracks better than that. "Well, sometimes I run through the neighborhood to get a little exercise in. Sometimes I just watch TV. Other times I go to work."

Rey gently pushes his hand away when he rests it on a pair of acid washed jeans. He raises a questioning eyebrow to which she responds by shaking her head. Guess it's a no on those jeans then.

"Wait, so you have a job? As what?"

"Just something I used to do before I met you," he shrugs. "It's good pay, has flexible hours and I can work whenever I want so - "

"Good pay? Flexible hours? Work whenever you want to?" She has  _that look_  on her face. The one that lets him know she's about to get into a good bit of banter with him. "Finn, are you secretly an  _exotic dancer_?"

Something else that's happened over the past few days is now Finn is totally comfortable with her teasing. Before he would probably get all flustered and try to say whatever made him seem the coolest but now - now he could dish it right back at her.

"I bet you'd like that wouldn't you?" He says with a good-natured wink.

"Oh, absolutely not. No boyfriend of mine is going to be shaking his stuff for other ladies - or gentlemen - no matter how handsomely he would probably get paid."

(In the back of his mind - way, way,  _way_  in the back - Finn might dare call this flirting but it's definitely not.

Besides the fact that this is all fake, she's  _Rey Skywalker_. Why on earth would she flirt with him?)

"Seriously though, I'm not a stripper." Finn clarifies, eyeing a pair of faux leather joggers. "I actually - and don't make fun of me for this - but I actually am a dog walker. It isn't glamorous, and I have to pick up a fair amount of dog poop, but it helps me pay the bills in between auditions and stuff."

Rey gasps - a literal, audible gasp - and gives his shoulder a shove. "You mean to tell me while I'm in meetings all day getting scrutinized by old dudes who are, like, three times my age,  _you're_  playing with puppies?!" He nods and she scoffs. "I have half a mind to break up with you right now."

He laughs, because sometimes she could truly be ridiculous. "I could take you with me sometime? You know, when you're not busy and we don't have to go shopping or whatever. I walk this one dog named Pickle and I think you'd like him."

She scoffs and shoves him again. "I can't believe you've been depriving me of hanging out with a dog called Pickle. Some boyfriend you are."

"Well is there anything I can do to make it up to you? I definitely don't want you upset with me." And Finn certainly doesn't mean for that to come out as flirtatious as it does, but it just sort of happens. He's by no means a lothario when it comes to women but even he has to admit the words came out of his mouth smooth as silk. It was quite unlike himself.

And judging by the challenging gleam in her eye, Rey picked up on the unintentional flirtatious tone as well. Thankfully, though, she doesn't push it further even though he would be willing to bet she so badly wants to.

(Which is good for him. He really only had the one smooth line, anyway.)

"Let's just get some outfits first then I'll come up with proper penance for you keeping Pickle all to yourself." Rey says, a smile still fighting its way into her lips. Finn nods and wordlessly follows her further into the heart of the store.

Even though it isn't her most favorite thing, Rey stays a good sport and the rest of their shopping trip turns out to be really fun. Because he's picky about what he wears, Finn ends up trying on a couple different outfits. Rey sits outside of the dressing room and indulges him by meticulously judging (and wolf-whistling at the ones she likes) each look to help him decide on one. Once he's chosen, he helps her pick something out. She doesn't try on nearly as much as he does, but he still makes sure she chooses something good.

"Safe to say we'll be on everyone's best dressed list come the day of the tournament," Finn comments as the cashier at the counter checks them out. The total comes out to be a ridiculous number that sort of makes him dizzy - they  _are_  buying designer clothes, though; the price was never going to be reasonable - but Rey seems unmoved by it. She simply swipes her card and signs when she's prompted. She says nothing when the cashier hands over their bags and mentions how great he thought she was in her last film. She only nods a silent thank you, of sorts, and slides her arm around Finn's as they walk out of the shop.

It's a small thing, really - especially considering their new penchant for holding hands - but Finn knows that coming from Rey, it means a lot. He's gotten pretty good at deciphering which of her actions are for the cameras and which ones are genuine and this one seems as genuine as they come. Her hooking her arm around his and leaning into him as they head to the parking garage seemed to be for no one else but her.

* * *

The morning of the tennis tournament is a lot less hectic than Finn thought it would be. Poe tells them a car would be arriving to pick them up around ten so he spends the majority of the morning getting ready. This was going to be his first time being in front of the public eye in a non-candid fashion. He wanted to look the best he could.

He's a little surprised - he really shouldn't be, though - that Rey doesn't have some sort of ' _glam squad_ ' to help her get ready. In fact, he doesn't even see her until a couple minutes before they're meant to leave.

"Rey," Finn knocks softly on her bedroom door before slowly opening it and peeking around to see if she was inside. "You alright? I haven't heard so much as a peep from you - "

Once when he was twelve, Finn got to be a ball boy for his favorite soccer team. Whenever the ball went out of play he got to toss a new one to one of the players. It was the most fun he'd ever had and after the match, his favorite player came up to him to sign a ball for him to take home and tell him he did a good job during the game. It was the first time in his life he'd ever been truly speechless.

Seeing Rey now, though, counts as the  _second_  time in his life he's ever been truly speechless.

"Well? What do you think?" Rey worries at her bottom lip and he wants to shake her because there is literally nothing about her appearance for her to worry about.

She isn't wearing the outfit they decided on - the one with the dark jeans and bomber jacket - but he likes this one much,  _much_  better.

"Uh," he's trying to formulate the right string of words to properly articulate what he wants to say. "I...you...good." Well, it wasn't an actual sentence but at least  _some words_  managed to come out.

"I know it isn't the one we decided on," she explains, smoothing out the skirt of the simple white linen dress she wore. Honestly, it wasn't anything special and maybe on someone else it wouldn't have been but on her it looked nothing short of amazing. "But I figured this would be better for a tennis tournament. Kind of a summer-y look, y'know? I mean I know, dresses aren't usually my thing but - "

And Finn can't figure out why that is. It isn't as if he hadn't noticed before (thanks to time devoted to Googling images of her back before all of this) but Rey has some fantastic legs. It's a shame, really, she doesn't show them off more.

"Okay, now you're just staring at me." The worried expression on her face snaps him out of his daze. "Is that a good stare or a bad stare?"

"Good," he answers with a short laugh. How she could think he's looking at her with anything but complete adoration is crazy. "Definitely good. I mean the dress works for you. You look..." he trails off not quite able to muster up enough confidence to call her beautiful. At least, not to her face. Not yet.

Still, Rey seems to receive the compliment he hadn't verbally given and blushes, all shy and bashful. Finn's tempted to (try to) compliment her again. He likes seeing her all giggly and pink in the cheeks. It's too adorable for words.

"Alright, let's go before I chicken out and change my outfit." She says, grabbing his hand - that really  _is_  their thing now - and leading him out of her bedroom and downstairs.

Finn opens the front door for her, a thought crossing his mind as he does. "You know this is our first date," he blinks and makes sure to clarify. " _Fake_  date, I mean."

"No," she disagrees as she slides into the backseat of the car Poe sent for them. He shuffles in beside her, grateful to see a privacy partition keeping them between their driver. "We had our first date when we first met. When we went out for pizza, remember?"

"You count that as a date?"

"You don't?" Rey looks at him, amused. "I think we're starting to get pretty good at this. We almost sound like a real couple."

Finn laughs, forced and unnatural. "Yeah. Poe would be proud."

And, yeah, this is all fake - he keeps having to remind himself of that more often than he'd like - but he would be lying if he said there wasn't a tiny part of him that wished it weren't. That tiny part could care less about getting paid because no amount of money seemed better than getting to  _actually_  date Rey.

(More worryingly, though, that tiny part of him seems to be growing in size every day.)

* * *

As it turns out, event carpets are kind of terrifying.

When they arrive at the stadium, Poe is waiting for them in full on 'monster publicist'-mode. He says a lot of stuff but Finn was so hyperaware of the fact that people were  _already_  snapping photos of him that he didn't really hear anything that was said. He got the gist of it - " _make sure to look in love!_ " - but the details were all lost on him.

Walking the carpet wasn't that bad, but still pretty weird. Finn did his best to pose accordingly with Rey in a way he thought Poe would approve. He alternates between just holding her hand and resting that same hand on her hip to hold her close to him. He was tentative about it at first - it wasn't a pose they discussed - but Rey went along with it with a smile that didn't seem forced so Finn was relaxed about it. He thinks the photos that were taken will be pretty nice.

Then there were the interviews they gave after they'd been photographed to death.

Finn let Rey take the lead on that one. She answered questions that even he found annoying -  _"so is this the mystery man that's gotten you out of the clubs and at home snapping adorable videos?"_  - with the kind of grace and patience that was truly admirable. He, on the other hand, played the role of supportive boyfriend. He only spoke when something was asked of him or if he felt like adding a witty comment to Rey's answers.

By the end of the fifth interview - which included an innuendo about their assumed sex life that was just vague enough not to have Poe swarm and end the interview short - Finn is more than ready to get to their box and watch the matches.

"Do you think I could bribe one of the ball boys to bring me a mimosa without any orange juice?" Rey sighs as soon as they've sat in their assigned box. They have great seats, just close enough to see the action but far enough to where the crowd camera probably won't focus on them too much.

Finn laughs, throwing his arm around her shoulders. He's taking a risk by doing it, but she leans in to his side so he figures they can add this to their list of 'things'.

"So, you just want a glass of champagne then?"

"More like several glasses, but I guess I'll pace myself - "

Rey stops speaking when a man appears from behind them and rests his hand on her shoulder. Finn is instantly ready to defend her from what he thinks is a handsy fan but then he actually recognizes the guy.

"Rey Skywalker," he bends down to place a (unwanted, judging by her face) kiss on her cheek. He smiles and pushes his long locks of hair out of his face. Yep. Just as Finn thought. The guy is Zeroes, an extremely overhyped 'singer-songwriter' - he uses that term loosely - that thinks he's a lot more talented than he actually is.

"Hey Z," Rey is doing her best to not sound so put off by seeing him but even she's not that good an actor.

"Long time no see, beautiful," his eyes rake over her and Finn finds himself tightening his hold around her shoulders ever so slightly. "You look good, but that's no surprise. You always look gorgeous, sweetheart."

Rey forces out a smile. "Thanks. You look, uh - you grew out your hair! Looks nice."

Zeroes smiles in a way that Finn is sure is meant to come off as humble but just seems cocky as all hell. "Remember that night you told me you liked guys with longer hair? Guess I took your advice." He looks over at Finn with a frown and points a finger at him. He really would like to make this guy go away. "Oh, is this the guy you've been hanging out with? I always see you two on social media and stuff."

"Yeah, this is Finn," she says, resting her hand on his knee. "My boyfriend."

Finn gives a small wave, not really wanting much interaction with him. "Hey man, nice to meet you."

Zeroes nods, licking his lips like a predator looking at wounded prey. But Finn is no prey and this guy definitely isn't a predator.

"Well Finn, you are certainly one lucky man to be the apple of Rey's eye," he leans down next to Finn's face, uncomfortably close to him. "Treat her right. Because there's always someone waiting in the wings if you don't."

And even though he doesn't want to cause a scene or do anything that could possibly make them look bad, he also can't resist taking a jab at this guy.

"Well, hopefully whoever's waiting will practice better oral hygiene." He says with a smirk that makes Zeroes' jaw clench. Finn feels pretty proud of that one. Though, really. The guy's breath wasn't all that great.

Before he can come up with a slick comeback - which Finn doubts he had - Rey steps in to diffuse the situation. "Right, so, I think the matches are about to start so I'll see you later, Z? Maybe at the afterparty?"

Zeroes takes one last long look at Finn - who returns his hard gaze, tenfold - before nodding in agreement. "Catch you later, Rey."

Despite not really caring whether he heard or not, Finn waits until they're relatively alone again before he speaks.

"Okay, I  _hated_  that guy." He says as Rey laughs, her hand still conspicuously on his knee. "How in the world do you know him?"

She shrugs. "I met him way back before I booked my first tv show, but back then his name was just Zach and he had yet to start writing douchey songs about women that have no interest in him."

Finn thinks he vaguely remembers reading something in one of those artist profiles on Zeroes that his entire first EP was based on his relationship with Rey. He honestly can't see why she would have ever given him the time of day.

"So did you guys, like, have a real relationship or were all those songs just lies?" His question is met with a carefully raised eyebrow. He knows how it probably sounds (like he's jealous but there's  _no way_  he would ever be jealous of  _Zeroes_ ) but, really, he's only asking out of friendly curiosity.

"We went on a few dates, but it was nothing serious." Rey smirks at him before poking him playfully in his side. "Why? Are you jealous?"

Finn scoffs and shifts in his seat. "What do I have to be jealous about? He's the one sitting alone and I'm the one beside you. I think it's safe to say  _he's_  probably jealous of me."

Rey only hums in response. The players are starting to come out onto the court so their conversation gets put on pause for the time being.

Even though he's never really been much of a tennis guy, Finn enjoys the first match. Since this was all for charity, it was a mixed doubles match that wasn't taken too seriously and ended up being quite fun to watch. The next match, though - the number one player in the world up against the number fifteen player - promises to be just as entertaining, if not more so.

As the players leave the court and the ball boys get things prepared for the upcoming match, Rey sighs and looks at the program they were handed when they first came in. She's still tucked comfortably into his side and, at this point, he can't tell if the for the cameras - which have actually focused on them a few times during the first match - or if it's because it's a genuinely comfortable position to be in.

(He sort of hopes it's the latter.)

"Oh look at that. The guys coming up next are from Great Britain and the US," she closes the program with a sigh. "Yeah, the British guy is totally going to win."

Finn shakes his head, knowingly taking the bait she's left dangling for him. "You Brits just think you're so good at everything, don't you?"

"Finn, this has nothing to do with me being British. I'm just saying that in this case, the Brit is better than the Yank, therefore, he's gonna win this," she looks at him, eyes narrowed in a challenging manner, before adding, "Easily."

"Oh really? Easily, you say?" Just then, an idea to make this match ten times more fun comes to mind. "Care to bet on that?"

"What are the terms?"

"If the American wins, you have to tell the next interviewer that asks you  _anything_  about me what a good kisser I am. Don't care if it has nothing to do with the question, you still gotta tell the world how talented these lips are."

 _This seems like an awfully dumb idea..._ , a tiny voice in the back of his head whispers. Finn (perhaps unwisely) ignores it.

"Fine, but if  _the Brit_  wins," Rey thinks for a moment, no doubt trying to come up with something more devious than what he settled on. "You have to do me one better. You have to actually kiss me. Right here, right now in front of all these people and their fancy cameras."

_Told you, idiot. Look at what your dumb idea has done!_

Finn rolls his eyes, unimpressed. "Is that supposed to scare me? Get me to back out of the bet? Do you think I'm scared of you, Skywalker?" He offers his hand for her to shake in order to seal their bet. "Consider this a deal."

Just as they shake hands, the two players come out of the tunnel to a chorus of cheers from the rest of the crowd who aren't busy making kiss-related bets. Finn honestly can't decide who he's rooting for.

* * *

After the most nerve-wracking hour of Finn's life, it was the American that ended up prevailing. He stood center court with a giant winner's check that would be donated to the children's charity of his choice while the British player held a smaller, but still equally monetarily important, check for his own charity.

Rey looks positively peeved.

Finn may or may not be bummed.

"That," she starts. "Was a fluke. Any other day my guy would have kicked your guy's ass."

"Yeah but I guess today just wasn't that day." And even though they shook on it, Finn can't stand to see her pout. "You don't have to say the kissing stuff if you don't want to. It was a stupid bet anyway."

"No, no," she shakes her head. "A deal's a deal. Plus it'll probably send Poe into panic mode which is something I haven't done for, like, weeks so it's long overdue."

Finn laughs - sometimes her and Poe's relationship reminds him that of an older brother and a pesky younger sister - and leads her out of their box. When they pass the flock of reporters, sure enough, she stops for a single interview and when Finn is brought up -  _"Do you think next year you and your new boo could participate in the tournament as celebrity guests?"_  - Rey slickly tosses in a well placed comment -  _"Oh, while that sounds like fun, I'm afraid Finn isn't too skilled at playing tennis. He makes up for it in other ways, though. He's quite the fantastic kisser, but not such a fantastic tennis player."_  - on his kissing skills.

They spend the entire ride back home listening to Poe rant and rave via speakerphone on how careless of a comment that was. They have to mute the call to keep him from hearing their snickering.

When they arrive home, Rey wastes no time flipping off her sandals and taking a seat on the bottom step of the staircase. Finn shrugs out of his jacket and leans against the banister.

"Oh man," she yawns. "Events like that are always so draining."

He nods in agreement. "Yeah, I can see why they're not your favorite thing. The press were sort of annoying and Zeroes - "

"You're never gonna let that go, are you?"

"I just can't believe you ever found him attractive. He doesn't seem like your type at all."

"Oh?" She quirks her head, curiously. "What's my type then? Since you obviously know better than I do."

Finn shrugs. "Someone who's not lame? I mean I'm all for sharing your experiences through your music, but the stuff he wrote - and about you, no less. He just seems like such a douche. I feel like you'd gravitate toward someone who's more authentic than that."

Rey looks as if she wants to say something, but decides against it. "Your feelings on my ex-paramour aside, you did actually manage to make this a bearable experience for me, so thank you for that." She adds with a roll of her eyes. "Even though I lost that stupid bet."

"Sorry again about that. I know how bad you wanted to kiss me." Finn jokes.

(And it  _is_  totally a joke because he's not dumb enough to think she wagered something like that because she actually  _wanted_  to kiss him. She was simply trying to one-up him and was certain her guy would win. No other reasons to it.)

"Was I really making it that obvious?" He laughs at her witty reply before he notices she doesn't actually appear to be joking. "Well, was I?"

Finn blinks. "Wait, were you serious? Rey, did you make that bet because you wanted - " he can't even bring himself to finish that sentence. He'd hate to be interpreting this all wrong and making a fool out of himself.

If Rey is trying to come off nonchalant, the shrug she gives does a poor job at portraying that. "No, I mean - I guess I  _did_  want to kiss you but," she wets her lips. "It was out of professional curiosity."

"Professional..." he mumbles, his brain trying to comprehend that  _Rey Skywalker_  wanted to  _kiss him_.

"Ugh," she groans and stands up from the step to face him. "Forget I said anything. It was stupid and now I feel embarrassed and - "

Finn chuckles and grabs her hand which was just about to start self-consciously running through her hair. "Hey, it's - don't be embarrassed. I have been told I look awfully kissable, so curiosity - professional or otherwise - is natural around me."

Rey laughs - he's  _really_  getting good at that - and visibly relaxes. She opens her mouth presumably to speak but no words leave her lips. Her eyes flit down to his lips and she stands there, almost a foot taller than him thanks to the step she's on, not saying a word. The sound of Finn's heartbeat is deafening in his own ears. It's loud and quick but why wouldn't it be considering he's pretty damn sure Rey is about to kiss him.

She leans forward slightly, probably a few centimeters at the most, before quickly pulling back. "I should go get changed." And that was definitely not what he was expecting her to say.

"Oh," Finn tries not to sound too disappointed. "Yeah that's - uh, do you know what you want for dinner? I could pick us something up - "

"No," she shakes her head. Things suddenly feel several times more awkward between them. "I think I'm just gonna eat whatever we have here. I actually have a couple scripts to look over so I might be in my room all night."

"Alright, I'll see you," he shrugs. "Whenever I see you."

Rey smiles and it's not the smile he's used to. It's forced, awkward and -  _god_  why did that situation have to take such a turn?

Finn watches her walk up the stairs and waits until he hears her bedroom door shut before letting out a series of curses under his breath.

That moment could have - and probably should have - been awesome. It should have been the culmination of every outlandish daydream he's ever had. He almost just kissed his celebrity crush and -

Wait.

Rey almost just kissed him.  _She_  almost just kissed  _him_  inside of her house where there are no cameras or hovering publicists. She had no reason to do it other than her wanting to and -  _holy shit_  she actually  _wanted_  to kiss him.

Finn is only excited about this for about two and a half seconds before he remembers this is actually a terrible development.

Poe's voice rings throughout his head reminding him of the intimacy clause he signed.

_'If you and Rey become a legitimate couple, then you forfeit your eight million dollars.'_

Well, fuck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> boy, i went back and forth for a looooong time on whether or not to pull the trigger and have them kiss but in the end, i decided to let the ~tension~ grow a little bit more. i also realized that, four chapters in, and i haven't really touched on rey's "issues" so that also ended up playing a part in holding back on the kiss.
> 
> not sure why i felt the need to explain that to y'all but nevertheless, i hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! i look forward to reading the comments that are left!!
> 
> thanks for reading!


	5. v.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a little family time never hurts. until it does.

_Rey is a good kisser._

_Finn doesn't know how she already knows just what he likes, just how to make him moan into her mouth every time her tongue grazes his bottom lip or whenever her nails drag against the nape of his neck. She's figured out every way to make him tick in record time and, dammit, if she isn't completely and utterly amazing._

_His hands are at her waist, the warmth of her skin bleeding easily through the thin fabric of her dress and - oh man, that dress. They've only been standing here joined at the lips for a few minutes, but he's already planning on getting her out of that damn dress._

_And as if thinking it made it happen, when Finn pulls away to take a much needed breath, they're no longer standing at the foot of the staircase but they're laying on his bed. And not the one he sleeps on at her house, either, but the one in his old apartment._

_He's confused - and rightly so; Rey's amazing but surely she hasn't mastered teleportation, right? - but when she starts peppering kisses onto his bare chest - wait, when did he lose his shirt? - he abandons all thoughts that aren't solely about her._

_After a moment, she pulls away from his chest to sit back on his thighs. Her eyes are dark, completely clouded with lust and the mere thought that Rey Skywalker is lusting for him is more than enough to send his blood rushing south._

_Finn wants to say her name - because it feels like it's the only word in his vocabulary right now - but when he opens his mouth, nothing comes out. It's almost as if he can't speak and that alone should be worrying but it isn't. Rey's hands are headed toward the waistband of his underwear - okay, now when did he take his pants off? - so his mind is a bit too preoccupied to worry about his sudden inability to speak._

_"Finn," her voice comes out like a warm echo surrounding him. "Wake up."_

_His forehead wrinkles, confused. Wake up? He_ is _awake. Or is he? This could be a dream but it doesn't feel like one. Rey feels as real as ever straddling him like she is. He doesn't understand what she means._

_"Seriously Finn," her voice sounds less warm and farther away that time. "Wake up and answer your phone."_

_His phone? No. No, no, no. Something's happening, this doesn't feel right anymore. He has to do something to make things go back to how they were before and -_

As hard as he tried to finish his dream - he’s had the same one every night for the past week now - the persistent ringing of his phone becomes too much to ignore. He opens his eyes, lets out a groan - whoever is calling him right now is officially on his 'shit list' - and yanks his phone off the nightstand next to his bed to answer it.

"Hello?" He answers, half-groggy, still thinking of all the possible endings his dream could have had.

"So I know it’s barely nine but your mom has already asked me like fifty times if you’re coming today so," Slip sighs and it’s a welcome respite from how fast he was talking. Finn’s still trying to wake up and can barely understand him. "Are you coming today?"

Finn shakes his head, rubbing away the sleep in his eyes. "Coming where?"

"Finn don’t even joke like that. Today’s the big reunion. You know, the one your mom’s been planning for months.”

Finn pulls his phone away from his face to double-check the date. It’s the third, the day of the family reunion he promised his mom months ago he’d attend. Dammit.

“Oh hey, you know what?” Slip’s still talking, completely unaware that Finn’s about to say whatever he can to get out of this. “You should bring Rey! I mean sure your mom didn’t plan for her but I’m sure we can find her a shirt and involve her in at least some of the games - “

“Slip I can’t come.”

There’s a beat of silence and Finn just knows Slip’s pulling one of his dramatic faces.

“Um, not coming is not an option. Almost everyone is excited to see you and if you don’t show up somehow they’ll blame me and then I’ll get yelled at and - “

“I know, I know but - “ Finn’s words are cut short by a knock at the door. He knows it’s Rey, probably on the other side eavesdropping so she can use whatever he says against him later. “Listen, I’ll call my mom and explain everything and completely absolve you of guilt but I’m just not going to be able to make it.”

"What? No!" Slip yells. "No, Finn, you can’t just back out like this, I’m serious.”

Rey’s still knocking and Finn knows if he doesn’t answer soon she’ll probably just walk in thinking something’s wrong.

Slip sighs, his voice taking a softer tone. “You know what? I totally get it. If I were dating a super famous, super hot - "

" _Slip_."

" - super dope actress, I wouldn’t want to skip hanging out with her to hang out with my parents and a bunch of my little cousins either but, honestly, everyone in the family already knows about your relationship and we’re all super excited to meet her since she so clearly makes you happy, so seriously, dude. Just bring her along. It’s not gonna be that bad."

Honestly, Finn would love nothing more than to introduce Slip and the rest of his family to Rey. He’s sure she and Slip would get on great and that his mom would love her and that his dad would regale her with embarrassing stories of his childhood, but it seems like a very  _real_  thing to do considering they’re in a very  _fake_  relationship.

In a few more weeks, Rey will 'break up' with him, they'll go their separate ways and Finn will never see her again unless she's on a screen. It's already gonna be bad enough for him - at least he'll be millions of dollars richer, though, right? - there's no need to drag his whole family into this too.

“Hey Finn,” much like he expected, the bedroom door cracks open and Rey pokes her head inside. “Is everything alright - “

Finn stops her by holding up a finger.

“Listen, I’ll text you later, Slip. I gotta go.” He'll apologize later for it, but Finn unceremoniously ends the call amid Slip’s protests on the other line. When he looks up, Rey’s leaning against the doorjamb, arms folded over her chest and a questioning look across her features.

“Like I said before, is everything alright?”

“Uh,” he clears his throat, trying to regain some sense of composure. Aside from the internal breakdown he was having knowing he’s going to be bombarded with calls and texts from his family the whole day, there was also the small issue of him not quite being ready to face her after the dream he had. “I’m fine. Everything’s fine.”

Rey lifts an eyebrow, clearly not believing him.

He lets out a long exhale before telling her the truth this time. “Before I signed on to be your boyfriend I had agreed to go to this family get together thing that just so happens to be taking place today. So Slip, and probably my dad, and most definitely my mom, are all gonna bug me all day about skipping it.”

“Well then why don’t you just go?” She asks with a shrug of her shoulder. “Oh! In fact, why don’t we  _both_  go?”

Finn blinks. Surely she’s joking.

“I am  _not_  bringing my fake famous girlfriend to my real non-famous family gathering.” He says matter-of-factly. “Besides, if we went Poe would probably have a stroke.”

“Is that supposed to make me change my mind?” She walks over and sits next to him on the edge of the bed. “Seriously though, you should go. You’ve been all wrapped up in me and this whole crazy situation and I think it’d be good for you to get back to your real life.”

Somewhere in himself, past all of the stubbornness, Finn knows she’s probably right. Technically, he doesn’t  _have_  to talk about his relationship if he goes home. Besides, it certainly wouldn’t be the first time he’s skirted questions about his love life.

Maybe his aversion to going home isn’t about Rey at all. Maybe he doesn’t want to go because it’s just like Slip said - he’s enjoying his new life too much. Because fake or not, Finn does enjoy the time he spends with Rey. Going home would just be a huge reminder that the fun life he’s been living for the past few weeks isn’t his actual life. Maybe he wasn’t trying to protect  _his family_  from the heartbreak of having someone like Rey light up their lives only to disappear completely in a few weeks time. Maybe he was actually trying to protect  _himself_  from that reality.

“Why do I get the feeling you’re just trying to get rid of me?” Finn teases, returning the encouraging smile she was currently giving him.

“Oh, because I totally am,” Rey says before playfully leaning her shoulder into his. “But all jokes aside, go see your family. I’m sure they miss you.”

He knows they do. His parents have said as much via many text messages and Slip constantly tagging him on any post having to do with best friends on Instagram can definitely be seen as his way of letting Finn know he misses him.

She was right. He should go.

And who knows, maybe a little family time would do him some good.

* * *

After getting dressed, and giving himself numerous pep talks about going to this family gathering, Finn finally heads downstairs, ready to leave. He finds Rey sitting in the living room watching some European soccer game.

“Oh hey,” once she notices he’s standing there, she looks over at him, eyes taking in his outfit. “You look nice. Very ‘boy-next-door’.”

He ducks his head, his face only feeling the tiniest bit warm at the compliment. “You sure you don’t want me to stay? We can watch the game together.”

“Finn, seriously. I will be more than fine without you. Go have fun, okay?”

Finn nods, looking down at the set of keys in his hand. He fiddles with the one that opens the front door before finally working up the courage to ask what he knows he’s wanted to ever since she convinced him to go in the first place.

“Hey, do you, uh, do - do you wanna come?”

“Finn,” Rey mutes the match and turns to give him her full attention. Her look of exasperation quickly fades, though, when she sees he’s not trying to stall and is actually genuinely asking her. “Wait are you being for real?”

He gives a half-shrug, half-nod. “As soon as I get there everyone’s just gonna ask about you so it's probably easier for everyone if I just went ahead and brought you along.”

“Are you sure? I don’t wanna intrude or make things weird for you.”

He smiles at her politeness. “I’m sure, Rey.”

“Okay then, if you're sure," she jumps up from the loveseat and makes her way to the staircase. "Let me just go change real quick and then we can head out.”

Finn is still incredibly unsure about this, about spending a whole day with his family and essentially doing nothing but lying to them, but somehow knowing Rey will be there with him helps make him feel just a little less unsure.

* * *

Maybe it’s nerves - it’s most definitely nerves - but Finn hasn’t stopped talking since they left her house. He’s briefed her on just about every member of his family  _twice_  and is actually considering going over things one more time just to be sure.

“Alright so remember, Slip is kinda obsessed with you so he’s probably gonna talk your ear off about anything that pops into his head. If my Uncle Lando asks you to play cards with him, don’t. He’s gonna try and swindle you. Also my little cousins are kind of annoying but they mean well. And they’re pretty into  _Jesse Declassified_  so I’m sure they’re gonna recognize you from the little guest spot you did and ask you a bunch of questions but - “

“Finn!” He squeezes his eyes shut as Rey rests her hands on his shoulders. They’re standing beside her car having just parked and Finn is currently nervous-rambling her to death. Despite it all, though, she still seems relaxed, not at all like she’s about to walk into a house full of people that are going to question her to death about their (very fake) relationship. “ _Breathe_. I can handle your superfan best friend, your gambling uncle and as many rambunctious cousins as you got, okay? This is going to be fine.”

He wishes he could believe that. He really does, but -

Before he can freak out anymore, Rey moves her arms to wrap around his waist and pulls him into a hug. He’s tense for a moment before he relaxes into her. He focuses on her breathing, the smell of her shampoo, the tickle of her breath against his neck - everything  _but_  the fact that there’s a very real chance this could blow up in their faces. And it seems weird that a hug could calm him down, but he does feel slightly more at ease, all things considered.

“Thanks,” he mutters against her neck. He can feel her smile into his shoulder and it only makes him tighten his hold on her.

“Oh my god.” Slip’s voice nearly causes Finn’s heart to stop. He steps away from Rey and turns to face his very starstruck friend. “Your mom saw a weird car in front of the house and she sent me out to investigate and - holy shit you actually brought her.”

Finn winces. Not even a minute in and he’s already embarrassed on Slip’s behalf.

“I thought you wanted me to?” Finn asks, slightly worrying that he was misled about whether or not it was okay to bring Rey along.

“Yeah but I didn’t think you actually would.” Slip rolls his eyes before walking up to Rey, his hand extended. “Hi, I’m Samuel, but you can call me Slip. Or Samuel. Or really anything you’d like.”

Rey smiles and Finn recognizes the look on Slip’s face. He knows it all too well. It’s the  _‘oh wow she’s so beautiful it’s almost ridiculous’_  look.

“I think I’ll go with Slip,” she says shaking his hand. “Nice to meet you.”

Slip nods, still shaking her hand. Finn actually has to physically pull him away for fear that’d he’d stand there all day shaking her hand and staring dreamily at her.

“Well Finn, Miss Skywalker,” he claps his hands together, seemingly snapping himself out of his own trance. “We should probably get inside. We’re just about to start the egg painting competition.”

Rey looks over at Finn, confused. “Egg painting?”

Finn sighs before explaining it all to her. “It’s a little competition we have. Everyone paints an egg based on a theme and they’re judged by an impartial third party - “

“Which would be me since I’m not actually a Storm, I just think I am.” Slip adds.

“ - But something tells me he’s not gonna be so impartial this year.”

Slip holds his hands up in mock surrender. “Not my fault you decided to bring along my favorite actor this year.”

Finn frowns. “I thought you said your favorite actor was The Rock?”

“Don’t believe him, Rey, he’s just trying to stop us from becoming friends. Now, shall we go inside and meet everyone else?” Slip offers his elbow to Rey which she takes, much to Finn’s surprise. He can’t help but roll his eyes as he follows behind them into Finn’s parent’s home.

When the three of them walk in, it’s much like Finn expected: his younger cousins are running around, his aunts and uncles are out in the backyard setting up the multiple games on tap for the day, and his parents and his older cousins are in the kitchen preparing snacks and eating said snacks, respectively.

It’s kind of chaotic but it’s a sort of chaos he’s missed. He can’t blame missing out on this familial atmosphere totally on his ‘relationship’ with Rey, though. Truthfully, even when he was just living alone on the outskirts of Hollywood, Finn probably never visited home as much as he should have.

“Mama Storm,” Slip announces as they amble into the kitchen. Finn’s mom is too busy cubing melon to look up so she simply waves a hand to acknowledge she’s heard him “I have performed a miracle and brought the prodigal son back home.”

His mom stops slicing the fruit and looks up. The sheer joy on her face when she sees him makes him regret ever thinking of skipping out.

“Sweetheart, you came!” Finn’s mom embraces him, hugging him so tightly and peppering kisses on his face, he’s almost embarrassed.  _Almost_. He loves his mom too much to actually be embarrassed.

“And he brought a guest,” his father says from his place near the fridge stacking water bottles into a cooler. He walks over to join them, wiping his wet hands on the front of the  _Storm Family Reunion_  t-shirts everyone was wearing. It leaves two wet handprints on the shirt and, yeah, Finn’s missed his dorky dad too.

Rey steps forward, hand extended. “Hi, I’m Rey. Really lovely to meet you.”

“Lovely to meet you, too,” his dad gushes, complete with the poor attempt to mimic her accent. “Not every day your son brings home a literal movie star. Which, by the way, we are huge fans. You’re a very talented young lady.”

“Oh yes,” his mom chimes in. “We’ve probably seen all of your movies, thanks to Finn. Every time one comes out he practically drags us to the theater - “

“ _Mom_ ,” Finn stops her before she reveals anything  _too_  embarrassing.

His mom silently mouths an apology to him before continuing. “Anyway, when Slip told us Finn was dating a movie star we almost didn’t believe him.”

His dad nods in agreement. “Yeah, but then he showed us those Snaptagrams, or whatever you call it, of the two of you and we saw he was telling us the truth.”

“Never doubt me, guys. Never doubt me.” Slip adds, folding his arms smugly over his chest.

Before anything else could be said, the patio door slid open and Finn’s favorite (swindling) uncle waltzed into the kitchen. When his eyes landed on Rey, he raised his eyebrows and gave Finn what he thought was a discreet thumb up.

“So Slip wasn’t lying about Ducky’s famous girlfriend, huh?”

Finn winces at the use of the childhood nickname.

Rey looks over at him, that devious twinkle in her eye. “ _Ducky_?”

“Oh did Finn not tell you about his nickname?” Uncle Lando pushes Finn aside and drapes an arm over Rey’s shoulders to lead her into the dining room where the egg painting table was set up. “Finn had this blanket with little ducks on it that he carried around until he was about ten. He couldn’t go anywhere without it - to school, to sleep, to the grocery store. You name it, Finn took the blanket. That’s why I call him Ducky.”

Finn groans. Not even ten minutes and they’re already starting with the embarrassing stories.

“Aw that’s adorable,” Rey coos as she sits down next to Lando. She pats the empty seat beside her and turns to Finn. “Come sit next to me, Ducky.”

“Thank you for that, Uncle Lando,” Finn grumbles while his uncle just laughs. “Thank you for bringing that up.”

“No problem, Ducky.” He replies with a wink.

After gathering all other family members that wanted to participate, Slip hands out the eggs and the paintbrushes, tells everyone this year’s theme - superheroes - and starts the timer on his phone, giving them thirty minutes to finish their eggs.

Finn spends half his time helping his five year-old cousin, Kayla, paint her Wonder Woman themed egg while Rey spends half her time listening to Uncle Lando tell just about every embarrassing story about Finn he can remember. Once Kayla’s done and Lando’s given up -  _”my egg is red, white and blue so I guess it’s a Captain America egg,”_ \- they’re both left relatively alone which gives them the chance to talk.

“So after everything you’ve heard from Lando,” Finn starts, brushing more gold accents onto his egg. “You still like me?”

Rey shrugs, a playful smile on her lips. “I actually think I like you more. I mean that story about you being upset because you thought people were killing jellyfish by peeing in the ocean - “

“I was  _five_ , Rey. And I won’t be ridiculed for caring about marine life, okay?”

“I’m not making fun of you for it! In fact, I think it’s kind of sweet that you wanted to save all the jellyfish in the world.”

The two of them end up staring at each other - Finn is certain he’s got a fond smile on his face that could rival hers - and he’s acutely aware of the way her eyes keep darting down to his lips. It reminds him of what happened after the tennis tournament and he’s desperately hoping for a different outcome than what happened that day.

However, thanks to Slip, the outcome ends up being more of the same.

“Hey lovebirds,” he appears seemingly out of nowhere and waves his phone in their faces. It completely ruins the moment. “There’s only five minutes left so you probably should spend more time working on those pitiful eggs and less time gazing into each other’s eyes.”

Finn scoffs. “We were not  _gazing_  - “

“Less talk, more paint,” he adds. “And you were definitely gazing.”

The rest of the five minutes Finn and Rey actually dedicate to working on their eggs - no gazing took place at all - and once Slip’s timer goes off, he brings everyone back into the dining room to judge.

Much like he expected, Slip chooses Rey’s Harley Quinn-themed egg over Finn’s Black Panther one. There’s a huge discussion over whether or not Harley Quinn even counted as a  _’superhero’_  but Slip wasn’t hearing any of it. Rey was declared the winner and his decision would stand.

Since everyone agreed Slip was acting out of bias, they all excluded him from the upcoming three-legged race, which, because she won, Rey got first dibs on choosing her partner. Finn’s more than a little surprised when she chooses his mom -  _”me and your mom versus you and your dad; that should be fun, right?”_  - but he rolls with the punches. He and his dad are gonna win, anyway.

Before the race, Finn notices Rey seems to be a little attached to her phone. She keeps pulling it out, reading whatever message is on the screen with a deep frown, irritatingly typing out a reply and shoving it back into her pocket all before repeating the whole process again. He wants to ask but logically he knows it’s probably just Poe bugging her. Still, there’s something that doesn’t feel quite right but he pushes it aside to focus on the race.

The race, which was deemed a tie even though he and his dad  _clearly_  won, ends up being way more fun than Finn could have ever expected. The rest of the day pans out that way too. His family completely takes Rey in and treats her as if she’s been a part of the family for years. She and his mom hit it off great and his dad really piles the ‘dad jokes’ on her when they all sit down to eat. His aunts and uncles all love her and his cousins are pretty much obsessed.

Finn catches himself watching Rey interact with his family with a sort of wistful feeling bubbling in his chest and he has to stop thinking about the situation - about how this isn’t real and how it’ll all be over in just a few weeks - to keep from letting himself get too down in this rather joyful atmosphere.

After a rousing game of flag football - Uncle Lando’s team won but only because Rey played dirty and kept tackling Finn but everyone was way too smitten by her to actually flag her for it - Finn gets dragged away by his cousin Kayla to go play since she was “tired of being with all the adults”.

"So," Kayla hands him a block of purple playdough before she continues her thought. "Is Rey your wife?"

Finn laughs, more at the thought of him being married to Rey, of all people, than anything. "No," he answers. "She's just my good friend."

"Like, a girlfriend?" She says in that cute singsong way kids do when they’re teasing someone.

"Aren't you a little too young to know about wives and girlfriends?

"No, I have a  _boyfriend_ , Finn," she says with a roll of her eyes. He makes a mental note to revisit that particular topic later. "But I don't think he looks at me like you look at Rey." 

And, really, she's only five and is probably the last person he should look to for relationship advice but he's actually curious about this ' _look_ ' she speaks of.

Finn molds his block of playdough into a sphere and casually asks, "What do you mean? How do I look at Rey?"

Kayla sighs as if it should be so obvious to him. "When she was talking to Grandpa, I saw how you were staring at her. You looked at her and you had hearts all in your eyes like the little yellow smiley face on my phone."

Finn chuckles. He should have known better than to take her too seriously.

"I was just looking, Kayla. I was making sure Grandpa didn't say anything embarrassing about me to her."

"I don't know, Finn," she sighs as if this conversation is weighing heavy on her. "I think it's love."

He reaches over and takes one the tiny playdough squares she was making. He squishes it into one of his spheres, zoning out into his own little world.

"Well, I mean I guess Rey is really nice - " 

"And pretty! Don't forget pretty!"

"Yeah, she's really pretty," he agrees with a laugh. "And she's funny. Oh and, can’t forget talented. And strong-willed, too, but in a good way, you know? Like she's stubborn but it isn't - I don't know how to describe it. She's just one of a kind. Rey is pretty special but I don’t know if I  _love_  her.”

“Sure sounds like it,” Kayla says very matter-of-factly.

Before Finn can respond, there’s a gentle knock at the open door and Kayla noticeably perks up.

“Hi, Rey!” She tacks a wild wave onto her greeting and Finn can’t help but smile.

"Hey, guys," Rey appears out of nowhere in the doorway and Finn is itching to know just how much of their conversation she heard, if any at all. "Uh, Finn, your mom wanted me to tell you she wants your help with the dishes."

Finn nods, not quite meeting her eyes. He almost just confessed to being in love with her to a five year-old. He will gladly get out of there and go wash dishes.

"Will you play with me, Rey?" Kayla asks excitedly. "I have dolls we can pretend with!”

“Of course, sweetie,” when Finn passes Rey in the doorway, she stops him by brushing her fingers over his cheek as if he had something on his face. “Oh, sorry. You just looked like you had some hearts in your eyes.”

She quickly makes her way over to Kayla before he can respond and, well. Guess that answers the question of how much she heard.

* * *

After doing a ridiculous amount of dishes, Finn finds Rey out on the patio deck sitting down and looking up at the stars.

When he sits down next to her on the outdoor sofa she was curled up on and throws his arm around her shoulders, he tells himself its to keep up appearances. No other reason behind it at all.

“Hey,” he greets her. “How was playtime with Kayla?”

“It was nice. She even braided my hair for me.” Rey shows him the small section of hair his cousin had haphazardly twisted into ‘braids’. “How were the dishes?” 

“Dirty, as expected, but I cleaned ‘em up.” He jokes.

Rey’s snuggles closer to him and stays quiet for a long while. It doesn’t bother Finn, though. He kind of likes the silence, especially after such a busy day.

“You know,” she starts. “My family never did this kind of stuff.”

“Well that’s because your family is kind of really famous.” Finn snickers. “I imagine it’s difficult to have a Skywalker family gathering in your backyard when you have to worry about helicopters with paparazzi hanging cameras out of them flying over or nosey neighbors looking to sell pictures to anyone that’ll buy them.”

“I guess that’s true, but still. I kind of just wish we were closer, more tight-knit like the Storms,” she says, giving him a poke in his side. The smile on her face, though, fades when her phone buzzes in her hand.

Since it’s been going on all day and Finn can’t resist any longer, he finally caves in and asks.

“Hey, who’ve you been texting all day? Poe?”

She shakes her head, her entire mood seemingly shifting. “My mom.”

Finn stays silent. He’s guilty of having read gossip columns and extensive fan theories concerning the nature of Rey’s relationship with her mom. There were a lot of rumors, a lot of things that may or may not be true but they were all based in the same vein of thought: Rey and her mother were  _very_  estranged. 

“It’s the first time she’s talked to me in almost six months. Apparently my dad is bringing her into town the day after tomorrow. She says since she’s seen how good I’ve been doing lately, she wants to have dinner.”

“Do you  _want_  to have dinner with her?” He asks, treading lightly.

“Oh come on, I know you’ve read the rumors like everyone else. I’m sure you can figure out whether or not I want to see her.”

“Like you said, those are just rumors. I don’t know the real story and I’d like to know it before I judge.” 

Rey sits up and turns on the sofa to fully face him. She looks so small, so vulnerable. He gets the feeling talking about her mother isn’t something she does often. 

"She's the reason I act, you know? She was so in love with the whole world of show business, which is ironic considering my dad's the one with the famous actress for a mother. In fact I'm almost certain it's the only reason she even married my dad," she takes a deep breath before continuing. "She walked out on us when I was ten years old and, I don't know, I used to be convinced she left because of me so everything I did, I did in the hopes that she'd see how I was just like the actors she used to fawn all over and be so proud of me that she'd come back." 

Finn isn’t sure what to say, if there’s anything he even should say. All the rumors suggested Rey’s wild behavior was the cause of the rift between her and her mom; none of it mentioned the woman abandoning her daughter.

“Isn’t this good, then? If she’s texting you and wants to see you, maybe she wants to work on your relationship.” He offers, his hand itching to clasp itself around hers in a show of support.

She lets out a rather deprecating laugh as she shakes her head. “No, she does this often, actually. She’ll see I’m doing well, come into my life, pretend to be a decent mother for a while and then she’ll ultimately leave again. Because no matter how many high profile roles I get or how many awards I win, it’s never enough to make her stay.” 

Just then, it all clicks for him. “And when she leaves, that’s when - “

“That’s when I go to clubs and toss champagne bottles at bouncers or show up on set and promptly curse out my castmates,” she finishes for him. “I know it’s no excuse for my bad behavior but - if being just like the people she idolized won’t keep her around, why should I even do it?”

Without any hesitation, Finn leans over and pulls her into a hug. He’s suddenly glad that he caved and invited her along because he would have hated to leave her home alone all day to deal with this. He’s glad that she got to be around people that accepted her, not because she’s a superstar, but because she’s a great person. He’s glad that she got to be silly and paint eggs and hear stories about how weird Finn was as a kid and have a five year-old braid her hair because she deserves that kind of carefree day, even if it was occasionally interrupted by her mom.

There’s so much more he wants to ask, so much more he wants to be around to listen to and let her get off her chest, but there was probably a better time and place to do it than right now in his parents’ backyard.

“I should have kissed you,” Finn hears her mumble into his shoulder and he promptly pulls away.

“What?”

“That day when we got back from the tennis event, I should have kissed you like I wanted to but I was just so...nervous.”

“Nervous?  _I_  made  _you_  nervous?”

“Yes! You didn’t use to but - “ she looks away, her hand running over the non-braided bit of her hair. “Do you know what the first rule of acting is?”

Finn purses his lips with a shrug. “Don’t forget your lines?”

“Don’t fall for your costar.” Rey’s hand comes up to rest on his cheek and this time when her eyes glance at his lips, he’s  _sure_  she’s actually going to kiss him this time.

She leans in, breath ghosting over his lips. His heart is beating so fast he’s slightly worried he might go into cardiac arrest. This is quite literally everything he’s ever wanted.

Which is why he hates himself for pulling away.

"Rey, we can't - I can't do this." Finn closes his eyes, not wanting to see the look on her face. "I mean I  _want_  to do this, don’t get me wrong, you're like the girl of my dreams, but I don't wanna violate the clause so - “

"Wait, a clause? What clause? What are you talking about?"

Finn frowns, finally opening his eyes again. Does she not know?

"The, uh - " he can see the anger in her eyes, not quite lit but smoldering, as if she was waiting for him to say the words and confirm whatever she suspects to fully set them ablaze. "You know what? Never mind its - "

Rey grabs ahold of his forearm to stop him from trying to squirm away from her (and this conversation). "What clause, Finn?"

He sighs before answering. He has a feeling he is going to regret this. "The contract I signed before we started all of this has a clause in it that says I won't get paid if you and I become legitimately involved."

She blinks, her mouth slightly falling open. "You're getting _paid_?" 

"Well, yeah. Did you think I wasn't getting anything out of this?"

"Poe told me he was signing you to the agency, he never said anything about  _paying_ you." Finn can see about a hundred emotions flash across her face. Shock, confusion,  _hurt_. He wishes he would have never said anything. When she stands up from the sofa, it’s pure instinct that causes him to reach out for her.

“Rey I’m - “

“Please,” her voice quivers. “I don’t want to cause a scene here because I’ve actually had such a nice time, and I kind of love your family so I’m gonna go home before I ruin the great day I’ve had.”

Finn doesn’t know if he’s frozen or if it’s his subconscious making the decision not to follow her for him, but when she walks away, he stays on the sofa. He watches her go back inside and he thinks he can faintly hear her saying her goodbyes to his family.

It ends up being another few minutes before he actually goes inside.

“Honey, Rey just left and she looked a little upset. Is everything okay?” His mom is sat at the kitchen table, worrying over a cup of tea.

“Yeah she, uh,” he doesn’t want to lie but it’s certainly easier than explaining the truth. “She got a call from her manager so she had to go.”

His mom hums into the rim of her cup, clearly not fully believing him.

“Mom, would you mind if I stayed the night?” Finn would go back to Rey’s place but he’s probably the last person she wants to see right now.

“Your girlfriend gets a phone call, leaves alone and upset, and suddenly you’re asking to spend the night here?” She pins him with that motherly look of hers and he's hoping she doesn't guilt the truth out of him. “You two had a fight, didn’t you?”

He sighs, rubbing the back of his neck. “I said something stupid and upset her so I think it'd be best if I gave her the night to cool off.”

She stands from the table and walks over to him, hands resting on either side of his face. "Do you want to talk about it? You know I'm great at giving relationship advice. In fact, your Aunt Lynn would still be single and living alone with her cats if it weren't for me."

"No," he shakes his head, not feeling quite up to indulging in her clear attempt to make him laugh. "It's...complicated."

Thankfully, she accepts his rather tepid explanation and sends him off to his old bedroom- which is his dad's study now - without too much of a fuss.

So much for having a carefree day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELLO AGAIN AFTER ABOUT 84 YEARS. um so i sort of definitely hated this chapter and tbh i kind of fell out of love with this whole fic bUT I AM DETERMINED TO FINISH IT SO WE'RE GONNA POWER THROUGH THIS, Y'ALL.
> 
> anyway, i'm interested to read any comments u guys have about this ~~terrible~~ update so leave 'em if you got 'em! and as always, thanks for reading :)


	6. vi.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> finn isn't going to go away _that_ easy.

When Finn woke up to several phones calls and even more text messages from Poe demanding he meet him at the agency, ‘ _as soon as humanly possible_ ’, he knew he was in deep shit.

But even so, he took his sweet time getting there.

He ate breakfast with his parents (and Slip), he went back to Slip’s apartment to shower and change into some fresh clothes Slip let him have for the day (he’s about a size smaller than Finn but it’ll have to do) and borrowed Slip’s car to head over to the agency _knowing_ he’d have to stop for gas, thus prolonging his trip.

Basically, Finn did everything in his power to get to Poe and whatever confrontation that awaited him as slowly as he could.

In the end, he managed to kill three hours before walking through the doors of the agency. Not too bad, but he thinks he could have at least tacked on thirty more minutes if he would have taken up his mom’s offer of a second helping of pancakes.

The receptionist at the front desk takes him to an empty boardroom to wait for Poe and it takes him all of thirty seconds before he realizes he’s in the same boardroom where he agreed to this whole arrangement. He’s sure this is poetic in some way.

The longer Finn waits, the more time his mind has to come up with all the reasons (and their consequences) why Poe’s insisted he meet him here. Usually he’ll just pop up at Rey’s house or send a long-winded text message or some ridiculous email but if he wants to see Finn in person in such a formal setting, it must be something serious.

The obvious explanation is that Rey’s spoken to him, told him she knows about the clause and Finn getting paid, and now Poe’s gonna yell at him. Which, he’s oddly fine with. Yelling, he can take; Poe being so upset that he possibly pulls the plug on the arrangement, however, would be a bit harder to take.

Just as he’s about to ask the receptionist how much longer it’d be before he could see Poe, the man in question comes gliding through the double doors of the boardroom. With _Leia_.

Yeah, this is serious.

“Poe, Leia,” Finn forces his best innocent looking smile. ”Nice to see the both of you.”

Leia returns his smile, albeit halfheartedly, but it’s still considerably better than the stern glare Poe pins him with.

“So, I had quite the interesting conversation with Rey last night,” Poe says once he’s sat in the chair opposite Finn. So Rey probably called him right after she left Finn. Fantastic. “Or, maybe conversation isn’t the right way to describe it. It was actually more like she called me, yelled and swore a bunch and then hung up.”

Finn swallows. What he wouldn’t give to have the chance to go back in time and prevent any of last night’s events from happening.

Poe sighs, opening the folder he brought in with him and producing a pen from his jacket pocket. “I’ll spare you the foul-mouthed details, but, long story short, Rey wants to end the relationship so this is a meeting to set that in motion. Now if you recall, per the contract, she’s the one that gets to be the ’ _dumper_ ’ so - “

“Wait, she wants to break up? Already?” Finn blinks, not quite believing what he’s hearing. This was the one thing he hoped wouldn’t happen.

“Finn, it’s been almost five months. Truthfully this wasn’t supposed to last more than three,” Poe chuckles humorlessly. “And I mean you have more than served your purpose. Rey hasn’t had a bad word spoken about her since you started dating, she’s gaining the trust of production companies again - her career is back on the up thanks to you. Don’t make this harder or more dramatic than it needs to be. Just take your just reward and get back to living your own life.”

Finn considers it for a moment. They’re giving him an easy out, possibly as clean of a break as he was ever gonna get and yet -

“No,” his chair squeaks as he shakes his head and Poe actually audibly groans. “No, I want to talk to Rey first. I deserve to know why she suddenly wants to end things.”

Poe and Leia exchange a look - he looks annoyed, she looks like she’s been proven right - before Poe closes his eyes and lets out a long exhale through his nose. “She wants to end things because there is no logical reason to keep them going. This is all fake, Finn, remember? She doesn’t owe you an explanation - ”

Leia cuts him off by resting a hand on his forearm. She gives him her own stern glare and he backs down.

“Fine,” he concedes. “But when she tells you the same thing she told me, I’ll be here waiting with your check.”

With that, the rather irritated agent storms out of the boardroom. Finn doesn’t really feel bad about putting him in such a mood. In less than twenty-four hours he went from having _the_ girl of his dreams confess to having feelings for him to suddenly sending her ’ _people_ ’ to dump him. Fake or not, he deserves answers.

“You know Rey called me last night, as well,” Leia suddenly says, grabbing his attention. It seemed like a random sort of thing to say, especially now considering this little meeting is effectively over, but Finn listens all the same. He has a feeling there isn’t much the woman does or says that doesn’t have a meaningful purpose behind it. “Do you want my advice?”

“Not if it’s the same as Poe’s,” Finn answers honestly, much to her amusement.

“She told you about her mom, right?” He nods. “Well if there’s one thing my brother’s extremely interesting choice for a wife taught Rey, it’s to hurt people before they hurt her. You beat her to the punch last night so this whole business about ending things is her way of getting back at you.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt her, though. I thought she knew everything. It was an accident, honest. If I had known that I was unintentionally lying to her all this time - “

“Finn, that’s not the part that hurt her.“ Leia gives him a knowing smile and he’s...confused. If not knowing about the clause and the money isn’t what Rey’s upset about, then what other reason is there? “Think about it and then go talk her down. Please.”

Before Finn can ask for clarification - he’s really not in the mood to decipher riddles - Leia’s already halfway out of the boardroom. It’s fine, though, he’ll just ask Rey himself when he sees her. He has half a mind to take his time again, to drag out going back to her house as long as he can to give himself time to come up with the perfect speech to convince her to just hold off on the breakup, but this matter seems urgent.

He’s afraid if he doesn’t change her mind soon, Poe is gonna take executive action and pull the plug himself, regardless of how Finn feels.

* * *

After about ten minutes of sitting in the driveway trying to psych himself up and figure out just what he wanted to say to Rey - he came up with nothing but that’s okay, he’ll just wing it; it’ll be fine - Finn finally goes inside. 

The house seems rather quiet, empty. He’s about to head upstairs to her bedroom when he hears movement coming from the living room and makes a beeline toward it.

“Okay Rey, listen, I know you’re mad at me and I know you probably don’t want to see me right now, but, please just - “ When Finn makes it into the living room after giving half of the introduction to his impromptu speech from the corridor, he’s more than a little embarrassed to find the source of the movement he heard wasn’t Rey at all.

The bearded man turns and looks at Finn, a small smile on his lips. He looks just like Rey.

“Sorry,” Finn apologizes. Given the general tone of his day so far, of course he would meet Rey’s dad for the first time like this. Of course. “I - I didn’t know it was you in here, I was expecting Rey.”

“I was too,” he chuckles before narrowing his eyes at him and pointing a finger his direction. “You must be Finn.”

Finn swallows with a curt nod. “Uh, yes - yes sir. I’m Finn.”

The older man smirks in a way that reminds him of Leia. “Ah, none of that ‘sir’ stuff. You can call me Luke.”

Given that Rey was never one to talk about her family much, if at all, all that Finn knows about Luke Skywalker is stuff he’s picked up from Google.

Even though his mom - Rey’s grandmother - was an acclaimed actress, Luke didn’t follow in her footsteps. He was content to just be _normal_ and, if the dozens of articles and think-pieces are true, he wanted his daughter to live a normal life as well. He never pressured Rey into getting into the business nor did exactly steer her away from it either. He left it completely up to her and Finn wonders if, in hindsight, he thinks that was a mistake.

“So Finn,” Luke says after a stretch of awkward silence. “I don’t suppose you know where Rey is, do you?”

“No, no idea.” Finn shrugs. “I thought she would have been here. She isn’t answering any of my phone calls or texts - I’m actually kind of worried now.”

Luke shakes his head and lowers himself to sit on the couch. He scrubs a hand over his beard and Finn thinks he looks tired, like he’s been in this situation before.

“This is all my fault,” he mutters to himself. “I should’ve never told her about her mom, not over the phone.”

Finn knows that Rey was expecting her parents to come in to town for their planned family dinner, but that wasn’t supposed to be until tomorrow. Her dad being here plus the comment about her mom doesn’t give him the best of feelings. He hopes nothing terrible’s happened.

“Is everything okay? Is _she_ okay?” He asks, hoping he isn’t overstepping.

“Yes, yes, she’s fine,” Luke quickly nods. “It’s just - it’s just she decided she didn’t want to fly all the way here just to have dinner and I told Rey that she wasn’t gonna make it and it upset her. That’s why I came here early, to try and spend some time with her, take her mind off of her mother, but the house was empty when I got here.”

Finn wonders if that has anything to do with her suddenly wanting to break up. She told him her mom always made her act out. Maybe this was what she meant by that.

Luke looks over at him and chuckles without much actual amusement. “I bet you can’t wait for this arrangement to be over, huh?”

Finn blinks. “So you know about Rey and I’s relationship?”

“That it’s fake? Yeah, I know,” he scratches at his beard again, giving Finn a curious once over. “When she first told me about this little plan Poe cooked up, I was obviously worried. No matter how much Leia assured me she wouldn’t let anything bad happen to Rey I still worried that some creep would come in and try to take advantage of her and the situation for his fifteen minutes of fame.

“But then she called me the night she first met you and she said, ’ _Dad, I met my fake boyfriend today and not only is he a real gentleman, but he’s really cute too_ ’.”

Luke breaks out into a genuine, chest-rattling laugh and Finn feels a blush creep up on his cheeks.

He remembers their first meeting, when they went and got pizza and she put him up on her social media. He remembers going to sleep that night in the guest room that became his bedroom thinking how crazy it was that he was falling asleep five feet away from _Rey Skywalker_. He had no idea she was in her room, just those five feet away, gushing to her dad about him.

“I know Rey and she doesn’t always warm to very many people,” he continues once his laughter has subsided. “But she certainly warmed to you. Fake or not, you’ve been more a friend to her than I think you realize and, honestly, she doesn’t have many of those. Well, at least genuine ones like you.”

“I think if you asked her now, though, she might tell you something different,” Finn ducks his head with a sad smile. “I just got back from a meeting with Poe and Leia, and apparently Rey wants to end the arrangement. Guess I’m not that great of a friend.”

“Maybe she wants you to be more than just a fake boyfriend or a genuine friend,” Luke suggests rather nonchalantly. Finn quirks an eyebrow, curious as to just what that’s supposed to mean. Do all the Skywalkers talk in riddles? Before he can ask, though, Luke’s already standing from the couch and walking over to him. He gives him a few good-natured pats on the back before throwing an arm around his shoulder. “Regardless of all that, let’s say you and me team up and try to go find her? Where should we start our search?”

Finn throws his hands up at his sides. Hell if he knows. He was sort of banking on her being at home.

The list of places she could be seemed short. Rey was a real homebody and never really went anywhere besides the places her work took her and - 

“I don’t think we’re gonna have to do very much searching,” he says with a grin. “I think I know exactly where she is.”

* * *

Finn breathes a sigh of relief when Luke parks his rental car beside the Mercedes that belonged to Rey. He was glad he was right in his assumption that she had snuck off for a hike and, in turn, saved him and her dad from going on a wild goose chase to find her. 

“Huh,” Luke muses as he switches the car off. “How’d you know she would be here?”

“It’s just something she mentioned once. Figured it was at least a good place to start looking.” He answers with a shrug.

“Well you go ahead and see if you can find her on the trail. My knees don’t exactly get along very well with hiking.”

Finn smiles, despite himself. The time he’s spent with Luke on the drive here was thoroughly entertaining. He can see where Rey gets her charm from.

“Okay, I’ll text you if I find her.” Finn’s halfway out of the car before he stops to turn around. “You do know how to text right?”

“Jesus Finn, I’m not _that_ old,” Luke rolls his eyes. “Now just go find Rey while I sit here and try not to die of old age.”

Finn nods and hurries out of the car. The trail (thankfully) seems pretty empty considering it’s actually a nice day out. He considers asking the few people coming down if they’ve seen Rey Skywalker, and if they have, which trail she was on, but he ultimately decides against it. There are only three (actually pretty long) trails for him to check. He’ll be fine.

It’s only after he’s about to start on the second trail - he really should’ve brought water and worn different shoes - when he decides to rest at the nearby picnic area, does he get a bit of merciful divine intervention.

He’s so happy to see those familiar trio of buns he could cry.

“Rey,” Finn laughs breathlessly as he approaches the table she’s sat at. She turns around, surprise written all on her face. “Boy am I glad I finally found you. Pretty sure if I had to check those other two trails I was gonna die.”

“Finn,” she blinks. “How did you know I was here?”

He shrugs, taking a seat opposite her. He nods towards her water bottle, a silent ask for a sip, to which she begrudgingly allows. He takes a huge gulp in an attempt to quickly rehydrate before answering.

“Well you told me before you come up here to get away from everything and after what your dad told me about your mom - ”

Rey holds up a hand to halt his words. “Wait, my - how have you been talking to my dad?”

“Oh, he’s actually in the car. Yeah, we came here together after I went home looking for you and only found him.” He takes another drink from the water bottle before continuing. “Anyway, that’s beside the point. What I wanted to say was that I’m sorry about your mom. I know you were looking forward to seeing her and - “

“I really wasn’t,” she interrupts curtly. “I couldn’t care less that she decided not to come. Doesn’t bother me at all. I’m used to it.”

Finn strongly doubts that but he keeps his opinion to himself. She seems to be in a better mood than he was expecting and he’s keen to keep it that way. It’ll be much easier to talk to her if she’s not upset with him.

“And what are you doing here anyway?” She continues with an exasperated sigh. “Have you talked to Poe yet?”

“Yeah, and that’s exactly why I’ve been trying to find you,” he wets his lips. Time to get this bit of unpleasantness out of the way. “Rey, why wouldn’t you tell me yourself that you wanted to break up? Why did I have to find out from someone else - ”

Rey snorts, her demeanor growing increasingly irritable. “Finn, don’t go getting all emotional on me about this. I never really knew until last night, but, apparently, this is just a business transaction. I got some good press, you got some money. I don’t see why we should keep this going any longer so let’s just end it.”

Leia’s words echo in his head just then. This isn’t the Rey he’s gotten to know, the Rey he’s grown to like, to care so deeply for. This is Rey on the defensive, trying to hurt him as much as he’s hurt her.

Finn isn’t gonna let her push him away that easy.

“Rey, I’m sorry, okay? If I would’ve known that you didn’t know about the clause or the money, I would have told you from the start, but you don’t have to try and get back at me by doing this,” his words only coax an eyeroll out of her. “Don’t throw away all the hard work you’ve done just because you’re mad at me.”

“Hard work?” She narrows her eyes at him, almost like he’s offended her. “What hard work? All I did was _date_ you and even then _you_ were doing most of the work. All I had to do was shut up, stand next to you and smile while you charmed the pants off of everyone because surely if lovable Finn Storm can tolerate insufferable, selfish Rey Skywalker, maybe she isn’t so bad after all.“

Finn frowns with a slight shake of his head. He wants to tell her that she’s wrong, that she isn’t insufferable or selfish but she keeps going before he can get the words out.

“And you know what the crazy thing is, Finn? You’re apologizing when you don’t even really realize what you’ve done wrong.”

“Then tell me,” he reaches over to grab her hand, which she surprisingly lets him do. “Tell me why it is you’re upset with me so I can fix it, because I really, _really_ want to fix it. If you really want me gone, then fine. But I care about you too much to let us end on bad terms.”

Rey scoffs. “You don’t care about me.”

“Yes, I do,” Finn says, hoping it comes off just as sincere as he meant it to be.

“If that were true, why didn’t you kiss me last night?” She slides her hand away from his with a cynical sounding puff of laughter. “Wait, let me answer that for you: because of the clause, right? You would rather protect your payday than act on those so-called feelings you have.”

Oh. So that’s what Leia meant. _This_ is the other reason she had to be upset with him. How could he not see it before?

“I don’t care that you’re getting paid, Finn, I really don’t. I care that - that I thought you were different, that I let you closer than I’ve let anyone in a long time and you just went and showed me that who I am - who I showed you I am - isn’t worth what you’d be giving up. _I’m_ not worth it to you.”

Finn feels terrible. He feels like absolute shit that he not only made her feel that way, but that he didn’t _realize_ he’d made her feel that way.

He needs to make this better, make her see that that isn’t at all what he thinks, but he isn’t sure how to articulate it into words. Or at least words she won’t just roll her eyes at.

Then an idea comes to him.

Words are pretty overrated anyway.

Finn stands from the picnic table and walks over to her, taking her hand and pulling her up to stand. Before she can question what he’s doing, he leans down and presses his lips against hers without any hesitation. He isn’t thinking about clauses or contracts or money or anything of that nature. All he’s focused on is the fact that he is kissing Rey Skywalker. And that she is kissing back.

When his lungs start to burn and his lips feel slightly numb, Finn pulls away, resting his hand on her cheek.

“You are very worth it to me, Rey,” he says with a tiny smile.

She leans her forehead against his and, for someone who’s just kissed him like she did, she looks awfully sad.

“I won’t tell Poe that this happened, but I still think we should end this and go our separate ways.”

Finn blinks, not quite believing it. How could she still want to end things after a moment like that? What else does he have to do to show her he’s sincere?

Rey steps out of his grasp rather easily. He doesn’t fight her, doesn’t try to keep her close. If she wants to walk away, fine. He’s done all he can do to make up for his mistake and put things right.

He always thought he would have to choose between her and the money, but turns out she went and made the decision for him.

* * *

They have dinner with Rey’s dad and it ends up being as amicable as it possibly could have been. Rey was still rather upset about her mom - no matter how she tried to deny it - and Finn was still upset that she still wanted to end their arrangement. Luke did his best to keep spirits up but in the end, their meal ended up being awkwardly tense. 

Afterward, after they’d dropped Luke off at a hotel and rode back to her place in silence, Finn decides that since it was finally just the two of them, he’d get some things off his chest.

“You never told me why,” Rey’s halfway up the stairs when Finn’s words stop her. She turns to face him with a questioning look. “I mean I get wanting to just get this over with before, but I’m willing to give it all up for you now. Do you just not like me anymore or something?”

“No, I - ” she sighs, fiddling with her thumbs. “The problem is I think I like you _too_ much. I like almost everything about you, which is admittedly rare for me, but I just can’t help thinking, because I do have such strong feelings for you, that it’s gonna hurt that much more when the novelty of dating a celebrity wears off and you realize what you got yourself into.”

Finn gets it now. This is just like Leia said. She’s trying to protect herself, trying to leave him before he can leave her. She had put herself out there last night, completely putting her heart in his hands and he had, in a way, rejected her. He shouldn’t expect her to shrug off that hurt and readily agree to move forward with him so quickly. He’s definitely going to have to try and rebuild that bit of trust between them.

“The first day we met I told you there were pros and cons to me agreeing to this arrangement but I never told you what the cons were,” he starts up the steps, stopping on the one just below her. He doesn’t know if telling her this will change anything, but he has to at least try. “I thought I knew you. I believed everything that people said, that you could be wild and mean and just overall not a great person to be around. So I was skeptical, but I figured if you were totally intolerable, at least I’d get paid for my troubles. Only you’re not intolerable at all, Rey. In fact, you’re kind of really delightful.

“Yeah, you have your moods, but so does everyone else. And y’know, everyone acts like there’s something wrong with you, like you’re broken and need to be fixed but I don’t see you that way. I think you’re just fine the way you are. I _like_ you just the way you are. So why would I ever leave someone I like enough to give up eight million dollars for?”

Rey’s eyes widen in almost comical fashion. “ _Eight million dollars_?”

Finn frowns. “Really? That’s the part you’re gonna focus on?”

“Sorry, I just - that’s a lot of money,” she says before raising an eyebrow at him. “Are you sure about this? Because even I would probably consider all my options.”

“Yeah well, like I said before,” he grabs her hands in his, threading their fingers together. “You’re worth it.”

Rey smiles that unsure smile of hers as she looks down at their joined hands. He really hopes she isn’t about to turn him down again.

“I know you can’t promise me this but,” she says, giving his hands a squeeze. “Please don’t break my heart. I’ve learned to deal with the disappointment that comes from having my own mother disregard me over and over again, but I don’t wanna have to learn how to deal with losing the first guy I’ve ever really had strong, genuine feelings for.”

Finn chuckles, freeing one of his hands to use it to tilt her chin up so she can look at him when he delivers this promise. “Rey, I can promise - and I do promise - that I will never break your heart. Ever.”

“Well in that case,” she sighs. “I guess I can tell Poe to hold off on ’ _operation: breakup_ ’. For now.”

“For now?”

“I’m still not gonna tell him that you kissed me, but I do think we should keep the arrangement going for a little while longer as a trial period, of sorts. That way if we’re not feeling it, you can still get your ridiculous amount of money.”

He’s not gonna try and argue with Rey about this. She’s still being cautious about things and he understands. He’ll just make this the most convincing trial period he possibly can.

“And in the meantime, if you want,” she continues, arms finding their way around his neck. “We can probably forget about that pesky little intimacy clause, too. That is, if you want to.”

Finn gives her a coy smirk before closing the gap between their lips.

Let the (intimacy clause-free) trial period begin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH HEY LADS. I HAVE RETURNED FROM WAR. but seriously, i was not gonna leave y'all hanging ok i will finish this fic if it is the death of me!! i promise i will not take 84 years to update this again. at the most i'll probably take like 83 years. im totally kidding. maybe.
> 
> anyway, i hope this wasn't _that_ bad even tho it probably was not at all worth the wait. pls do leave me all of ur comments/questions/general abuse bc i look forward to reading them!
> 
> thank you so much for being patient with me and, as always, for taking the time to read my lil fic!


	7. vii.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> one last hurdle (or two) to clear before making it to the finish line.

If he’s being completely objective, Finn would say he’s kind of a fantastic boyfriend.

Granted he doesn’t quite know if that’s what he should be calling himself now — maybe he and Rey are just ex-fake boyfriend and girlfriend with benefits at this point — but whatever he is, so far, he’s totally _crushing_ it. Even if it’s only technically been a few hours.

Because he woke up before she did — and because he’s a fantastic ex-fake-boyfriend-turned-maybe-real-boyfriend — Finn decided to quietly tiptoe out of Rey’s bedroom and head downstairs to make her breakfast and bring it up to her for her to enjoy in bed.

In all his time of being her pretend boyfriend, Finn never got a chance to show off his impressive culinary skills. That changes today.

Just as he’s flipping the last chocolate chip dotted pancake, he hears footsteps and quickly spins around, just a tad disappointed to see Rey making her way into the kitchen. Her hair is haphazardly up in a bun and she’s wearing his shirt from last night and — honestly, he doesn’t know how he found the strength to keep his hands off of her all these months.

“Morning,” she greets him, though her focus is totally on the small spread he has going on the kitchen island. “What’s all this?”

Finn smiles as he turns off the griddle and slides the last pancake onto the plate containing two more, some slices of bacon and a (slightly) burnt piece of toast. All next to a cup of cubed fruit and a nice cold glass of orange juice, of course.

“ _These_ are my famous chocolate chip pancakes,” he answers before walking over to her and giving her a quick peck on the cheek. “I figured you might be a tad tired from last night so I made you breakfast.”

“Wow,” she hums, picking an errant chocolate chip off of the plate and tossing it into her mouth. “Would you look at that. He cooks, too. How’d I get so lucky to have a guy with so many talents?”

“Well if I recall correctly, you picked my headshot out of a lineup,” Finn teases, resting his chin on her shoulder as he moves to stand behind her while she starts on the cup of fruit. “Can I ask how you’re feeling?”

Even though their night ended considerably better than it had started, Finn’s aware that Rey still has reservations about this, about them. Aside from the fact that she doesn’t want to jeopardize his end of the contract, he knows her worries about him running out on her are still there. No matter how much he wishes they weren’t.

Rey shrugs the shoulder he isn’t occupying and holds a piece of melon out for him to take. “I feel good. Last night was obviously incredible, so it’s hard for even me to feel pessimistic about it.”

She doesn’t say it, but he can practically hear it anyway.

“ _But_...” he trails off, knowing that’s where she was going next with this.

“But, I don’t want that to be the norm,” she finishes before further explaining herself. “I don’t want to spend this period of ’ _real dating_ ’ just having sex and think that makes us compatible. I want to actually be a real couple — minus all the planned appearances and forced social media posts and everything else our fake relationship required.”

Finn hums and presses a kiss to the side of her neck. “Okay then, I can do real. Because as good of a fake boyfriend as I was, I’m ten times better as a real one. But, I need you to do something for me.”

Rey turns to face him, lips pursed. “Is it the thing I did last night? Because you don’t have to ask for me to that again, we’re not an old married couple, okay? That isn’t an only-on-your-birthday type thing — “

“No, Rey, that’s — I mean I would like that again but that’s not — “ he’s getting all twisted around remembering just what she was referring to. Finn has to take a moment to catch his breath and his derailed train of thought. “What I was going to ask is for you to be open with me if we’re gonna try and be real with one another. I know you’re still pretty cautious about things, but I meant what I said. You don’t have to be afraid of being yourself with me. I like you for everything you are — every quirk, every flaw, everything. I know it’s hard, but you’re gonna have to try and trust me just a little bit here. I’m not gonna run away. Promise.”

After a quiet few seconds, she shakes her head, the corners of her mouth twitching upward. “You’re great in bed, you cook chocolate chip pancakes _and_ you make heartfelt promises? Gosh, I really did hit the jackpot when I picked your headshot, didn’t I?”

Finn doesn’t wanna seem conceited, but — yeah. She really did.

Just as he leans forward to touch his lips to hers, they’re interrupted by the very familiar sound of the front door opening followed by an even more familiar sounding voice.

“Hey, Rey!” Of course Poe would show up unannounced. Of course. “I know you’re here, I saw your car out front. You up yet — “

Thankfully before he ambled into the kitchen, Finn and Rey had time to break apart and not act like they were just in a very real loving embrace. Though Rey’s current pants-less state still makes for a suspicious scene.

“Oh hey,” Finn greets him. He’s leaning against the sink, steeping a tea bag in a cup of (cold; Poe doesn’t need to know that, though) water he quickly poured not five seconds ago. “Good morning, Poe.”

Poe narrows his eyes at him before glancing over at Rey, who — bless her — opted to shove a piece of bacon in her mouth. Guess she figured she couldn’t answer any of Poe’s sure to be asked questions if her mouth’s full. It’s kind of genius on her part. Kind of.

“Do you have a key? I didn’t hear you knock — “

“Why are you here?” Poe interrupts him with a grimace. “The two of you broke up yesterday, remember?”

Finn frowns with a shake of his head. “No, I distinctly remember telling you I was gonna talk to Rey first before we made anything official.”

Poe scoffs and turns his attention back to Rey. “And did you lose your pajama bottoms during your talk?” He lets out a deep sigh followed by a humorless chuckle. “As usual, Leia was right. I tried to convince myself that no one could be stupid enough to give up _that_ much money and yet here we all are. You two are really seeing each other now, aren’t you?”

Finn and Rey look at each other, telepathically trying to come up with a convincing lie that neither one of them actually has. They really should have prepared better for this.

“By the way, don’t bother lying,” Poe continues. “Because _you_ are clearly wearing his shirt and _you_ have a hickey on your neck that I’m guessing didn’t just come out of nowhere.”

Finn’s hand comes up to cover the aforementioned blemish. So far they are really, _really_ bad at hiding their relationship.

“How long have you two been,” he sighs unpleasantly again. “For real?”

“It just happened yesterday,” Rey answers.

Poe immediately pins Finn with a look that has him scrambling to defend himself.

“Just for the record, I never forced her into anything, okay? I simply told her how I felt and, turns out, she feels the same way. No trickery or coercion involved.”

“Right, because it’s so easy to turn down you and your big brown eyes when you’re confessing your feelings,” he responds, sarcastically.“You know what? This is my fault. I put two young, attractive people in a house together and expected them not to want to have sex, which was naive of me. Looking back, I should have had you live apart, but now that you’ve gotten it out of your systems, I’m willing to overlook this and still honor the contract — “

“That isn’t what happened, Poe.” Rey interrupts. “I mean, yes, we slept together, but — Finn and I wanna be together. For real. This isn’t about him helping me look good anymore, I actually like him. A lot. And I don’t want you orchestrating our relationship anymore.”

Poe shakes his head and fixes his hands on his hips. Finn tries to read his expression and gauge just how upset he is, but he actually looks more like he does whenever he’s concocting a planned outing or orchestrating some big social media post for them. And, truthfully, that’s probably more worrying than him being angry.

“So you’re, like, genuine about this? You really want to be with him?” He asks Rey, who gives him a firm nod, before turning to Finn. “And you don’t care about losing the money?”

“No,” Finn answers, making sure to look over at Rey. “She’s worth it.”

“Well, shit. I initially came over to have you look at some breakup statements and approve one, but given _this_ ,” he gestures between the two of them. “Looks like I gotta head back to the office and find my binders containing relationship protocols. _Real_ relationship protocols, though, not the fake nonsense I gave you guys before.”

Finn does his best to bite back a smile. He really expected Poe to throw some sort of fit, to rant and rave about how this was a wrench in his many plans, but to have him be (somewhat) accepting is a pleasant surprise.

“So you’re okay with this?” Rey asks, cautiously. She’s clearly just as surprised by his reaction as Finn is. “You’re not gonna scold me for doing the one thing you told me not to do when we decided on this fake boyfriend thing or get on Finn’s case about breaching the contract?”

“I know it may not seem like it sometimes — which is completely my fault; I have to get better at not taking this job so seriously — but Rey, if you’re happy and Finn’s cool with forfeiting the money, I have no problem with _FinnRey_ being legit. You two are adults, you can date whoever you want.” Poe shrugs, grabbing a piece of bacon off of the nearby plate of food. “Although, you do have a really important meeting concerning you possibly getting a role in that new superhero franchise in a few weeks so, _please_ don’t make me have to release an actual breakup statement. Pretty sure the casting directors wouldn’t want that kind of negative press attached to their new star.”

“Yeah, I don’t think that’s going to be a problem,” Rey walks over to Finn and wraps an arm around his waist in a half-hug, resting her head on his shoulder with a smile. Poe only rolls his eyes and helps himself to the last piece of bacon.

“God, how did I not see this coming? I’m usually so good with these things.” He mutters under his breath. “Anyway, I want to see the two of you in my office today at three. Rey, please wear pants. Finn, please wear a turtleneck.”

Just as he turns on his heel to make a quick exit, he spins back around with one more thing he clearly has to say before he leaves.

“Oh, and one last thing before I go,” he meets both of their eyes, his expression very serious. “Don’t — don’t hurt each other, okay?”

The two of them nod, and Finn’s quite touched that Poe would say something like that.

Though that sentimental feeling gets a bit dashed when Poe quickly grabs the glass of orange juice to finish it off before waving an even quicker goodbye. He must be excited to go find those binders of his. Rey waits until the front door slams shut to let out an annoyed groan.

“I’m glad he’s not having a fit about us being legit but, did he have to eat practically half of what you cooked for me?” She walks over to the now half empty plate of food with a pout Finn has half a mind to kiss away. “Well, at least he left the pancakes. Bright side, I guess.”

“You know, we might as well just save those for later. I kind of have a taste for something else now anyway.” He says with a smirk, hoping she catches on to what he means. And judging by the coy glint in her eye, she definitely has.

“Oh really?” She questions, pretending to be completely clueless as to what he’s alluding to. “And what would that be?”

“Well, uh, let’s go upstairs and I’ll show you,” he winks.

And hopefully, this _”meal”_ doesn’t end up getting interrupted.

* * *

The next few days are pure bliss. Well. Once they got through Poe’s (loving) incessant nagging — _”don’t put yourself in a position where a potential sex tape might leak and please,_ please _don’t get pregnant”_ — their days were blissful.

Finn actually got to take Rey out on _real_ dates and it was way more fun than he could have possibly imagined. They did things like bowling with Slip and her dad, before he left town, and having dinner over Finn’s parents’ house, and going to an art studio to take a pottery class. Maybe he’s still in the honeymoon phase, but Finn can’t remember the last time he was this happy in a relationship.

For their date tonight they’ve opted for something a little more romantic: dinner at home, just the two of them.

Even though Finn had offered to make the meal, Rey insisted it’d be a lot more fun if they made it together and, as with most things, she was right. When they weren’t playing impromptu games of throwing bits of food into each other’s mouths from varying distances, Finn kept himself entertained by teasing Rey for her utter lack of culinary skills.

Several times he would be chopping away at whatever vegetable the recipe called for and would look over at her keeping an eye on the simmering pasta — because that was just about the extent of her cooking abilities — and find himself in awe of just how easy this is. Being with Rey, having a good time, enjoying himself — it's effortless.

And while the good parts are easy, the hard parts don’t seem all that hard with her either.

Over dinner, the topic of some her upcoming projects came up and Finn just so happened to wonder what her possibly leaving to film in places other than LA for months at a time would mean for them. Rey assured him nothing would change at all. Sure, they’d have to FaceTime a lot more and maybe he’d have to fly out and spend a few days here and there with her, but she was still as committed as ever to their relationship if he was too. A little bit of distance wasn’t going to scare her so Finn made sure she knew it wasn’t gonna make him run, either.

At the end of their meal, when their plates were empty and she had somehow graduated from playing footsie with him to full-on resting her feet in his lap, Rey decided to bring up a concern of her own.

“So I noticed when you were making this amazing meal that wouldn’t have at all been possible without me diligently watching the pasta and making sure it didn’t burn,” she starts, humbly, of course. “I didn’t see any signs of a dessert.”

“Oh, there’s dessert,” he says, matter-of-factly, standing up to gather their plates. “It’s standing right in front of you. And my dessert is sitting right in front of me.”

Rey rolls her eyes as he walks over and quickly kisses her cheek to punctuate his clever response. “Cute, but I was thinking more along the lines of a cake, perhaps? Maybe even a sundae since there’s ice cream in the freezer — “

Finn sighs. “You would rather have ice cream than your own boyfriend?”

“No, what I’m saying is that I’d rather have ice cream _and then_ you. Oh! In fact,” she stands up and takes the plates from his hands. “I’ll go make us _both_ sundaes and we can eat them while we watch some TV — preferably nothing with me it — and then we’ll see about enjoying the dessert you had in mind.”

Just as the cheeky response was about leave his lips, the sound of the doorbell rang throughout the house, momentarily stopping him.

“I swear, if that’s Poe — “ Finn mutters under his breath. It’s late, but it’s not like there’s a such thing as it being _’too late’_ for Poe to pop up. “Look, I’ll go see who that is and you go make those sundaes. Oh, and save a little chocolate syrup for our _other_ dessert.”

Rey raises an eyebrow at him, clearly unimpressed with the wink he threw her way. “Yeah, you’re not bringing chocolate syrup into my bedroom so just forget that thought right now.”

This time, it’s Finn’s turn to roll his eyes as he heads for the door. There’s still time to convince her otherwise, which he definitely plans to do. Once he gets rid of Poe, of course.

“One second!” Finn yells out as the doorbell rings a few more times before he reaches it. “Alright, Poe, what is it this time — “

When he opens the door and in front of him stands a woman he definitely recognizes, his mouth completely goes still. He’s seen her in images on the internet, but, more recently, in a few photos around Rey’s house.

Well, this certainly isn’t Poe.

Finn can’t quite believe he’s actually face-to-face with Rey’s mom right now.

“Sorry to disappoint, but it isn’t Poe,” she smiles and he almost wants to laugh because it looks a lot like Rey’s. “You must be the boyfriend. Finn, is it?”

He blinks, regaining his composure, before nodding. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m — I’m Finn.”

“Mara,” she extends her hand, which he softly shakes. “Can I come in, Finn?”

Finn hesitates, his mouth falling open. On one hand, he can’t very well leave the woman out on the doorstep, but on the other, this is Rey’s home and he feels with some degree of certainty that she’d surely break up with him (for real this time) if he invited her in.

In the end, he nods and takes a step aside to allow her to pass. It’s a calculated risk he hopes doesn’t end up being one that does his very new, very lovely relationship in.

Before he could excuse himself and make his way into the kitchen to warn Rey as to who exactly has come to visit her, she comes out into the living room with a bottle of sprinkles in each hand.

“Hey Finn, do you want rainbow or chocolate sprinkles — “ she stops upon eyeing her mother and goes white as a ghost. Finn idly wonders how she managed not to drop the sprinkles when he realizes she’s clutching them so tight the tops just might pop off.

“Hi, sweetheart,” her mom greets her with the same smile she gave Finn.

“Mom? What are you doing here?”

She shrugs. “I can’t visit my own daughter?”

“No,” Rey answers firmly. “Not this late at night, without warning. Not when you told dad that you _‘didn’t feel like’_ making the trip with him to come and see me before.”

“Well, I changed my mind,” she says. “I underestimated just how badly I actually wanted to see you, Rey. Plus when your dad tried to explain to me how Finn was your fake boyfriend but now he’s your real boyfriend, I just had to come and see this mess for myself.”

Rey sighs with a shake of her head. “It’s not a mess, it’s — look, can you just please leave? It’s late and Finn and I have plans so — “

Finn springs to attention when her mom glances his way. “Plans this late that somehow involve two different kinds of sprinkles?”

“Sundaes,” he chokes out, almost unintelligible. “We were making sundaes. Ice cream sundaes. Then we were gonna go to bed. I, uh — y’know, separately. In case you were wondering.”

She laughs before turning back to Rey and not-so-subtly whispering, “He’s adorable!”

And Rey isn’t nearly as amused as her mom is.

“Okay, okay,” her mom starts, raising her hands in surrender. “I know when I’m not wanted around. I just thought I’d stop by on my way to the hotel and let you know I’m in town and to see if you and Finn maybe wanted to have lunch tomorrow?”

Contrary to what Finn expected, Rey doesn’t immediately say no. In fact, she doesn’t say anything for a few seconds, which given the amount of tension in the room, end up being quite uncomfortable. She just stands there, fiddling with the sprinkles in her hands before finally deciding on an answer.

“I’ll text you.”

Finn knows what that means and, judging by the look on Mara’s face, she knows what it means as well. It isn’t a definite no or a definite yes, but a rather flimsy _’we’ll see’_. And, honestly, that’s probably the best she was gonna get.

“Right, well,” her mom sighs, doing her best to put on a brave face. If you ask him, which he’s sure no one is, she actually seems genuinely disappointed. “Even though this was a quick visit, it was really nice seeing you, Rey. And you too, Finn! Lovely meeting you.”

“Yeah,” he nods, with a small smile. “It was great finally meeting you, too.”

“Alright, you two have fun with your sundaes and hopefully I will see you tomorrow.” There’s a slight hesitation before she takes a few steps forward and throws her arms around Rey. At least she managed to hug her mom back. “I’ll see you later, sweetheart.”

When she walks past him to head out the door, Finn gives her a small wave goodbye. He waits until he hears the click of the front door shutting to exhale. Talk about a tense family moment.

Rey stands in front of him, worrying at her bottom lip for a moment before taking a deep breath and extending the sprinkles toward him again.

“So, rainbow or chocolate?”

He raises an eyebrow and points to the bottle of rainbow sprinkles. She nods, satisfied with his choice and disappears back into the kitchen. Finn, of course, is right on her heels.

“Okay, are we just going to pretend your mom didn’t just drop by, unannounced, and invite us to lunch tomorrow?” He asks, surprised by the way she’s seemed to just gloss over the whole encounter in favor of finishing their sundaes. “Because I guess it’s fine if we are, but I just think we should maybe talk about it — “

Rey tosses a spoon into the sink and the loud rattling interrupts him. He has a feeling that was done purposely.

“Hey,” Finn can see the turmoil on her face, the conflict that stems from trying to ignore the natural instinct to be happy to see her mom in order to keep herself from being disappointed by the woman, yet again. He steps closer to her and rests his hand on top of hers, giving it a light squeeze. He knows in this situation it’s best to hear her out and let her vent than to offer up any advice. “Talk to me. Don’t hold it all in.”

“It’s just — she’s my mom, y’know?” She starts, sounding exasperated. “Obviously I want my own mother to be a part of my life, but there’s a part of me that can’t let go of all the times she’s walked out on me and how bad that hurt. I wanna forgive her and move forward but I’m afraid I’m still not enough. Even with my career finally going right again and me being in this great relationship, she’s still going to find some reason to leave me again. And when she does, I’m gonna second guess everything and end up ruining it all like I always do.“

Finn hums, grabbing a nearby spoon and twirling it between his fingers. “No you won’t.”

Rey narrows her eyes at him, watching him take a spoonful of ice cream from one of the finished sundaes. “You sound awfully sure of that.”

“It’s because I am,” he says with a mouthful of ice cream. “You won’t ruin anything because this time you got me around. I’m not Poe or your dad or Leia or anyone else in your life that kinda-sorta has an agenda when it comes to you, and your mom, and your career. All I care about is you. If you wanna try and mend your relationship with her, I’ll support you. If you never wanna speak to her again, I’ll support you. If you wanna quit acting forever and move to a cabin in the wilderness, I will pack our bags, okay? Because Rey, the only thing that matters to me is your happiness.”

All of the tension that had been set in her shoulders since the moment she saw her mom melts away at that moment. She looks at him, searching his face for _something_ before enveloping him in a hug.

“I love you.” She doesn’t whisper it, doesn’t mutter it underneath her breath or say it with a hint of pause or timidity. She doesn’t say it as if she herself might question it, like she’s only saying it because he’s said what he said and confessing her love seems like the only proper response. She doesn’t even say it in a way that she could easily play it off as a joke, just a goof to see how’d he react.

No, Rey tells him she loves him confidently, in earnest, like there isn’t a doubt in her mind and Finn knows that there isn’t.

There isn’t one in his mind either.

“I love you, too.”

Rey leans back, eyes meeting his — if she’s looking for any insincerity, she won’t find it — before shaking her head with a laugh.

“Sorry,” she steps away, turning her face as if she’s embarrassed. Though, she has nothing to be embarrassed about. “Was that — that wasn’t weird for you, right? I just — I had to say it.”

Finn shakes his head with a shrug. “Honestly, I’m just glad you said it first because I really thought it was gonna be me. Turns out, _you’re_ the big softie in our relationship.”

Rey scoffs. “I am _not_ the softie, okay? You’re the one that loves making these long-winded romantic speeches about how much you care about me.”

“And I never get any romantic speeches back,” he clicks his tongue at her. “And yet you claim you love me?”

She rolls her eyes, handing him his sundae. “Let’s just hurry up and eat these so we can go upstairs and spend the rest of the night reciting romantic poetry to one another like the softies we both are.”

Her mom showing up could have been the end of their night — in all honesty, it probably should have been — but it wasn’t because, like everything else, their relationship is just...easy that way.

They spend the rest their night finishing their sundaes and watching a few episodes of The Office before heading to bed to decidedly _not_ recite poetry of any kind to each other. Neither one of them thinks about parents or possible lunch dates or anything else besides one another.

But they do spare a thought here and there to colorfully discuss which one of them is the bigger softie.

* * *

In the end, Rey ends up choosing to indulge her mother with a lunch date, the only caveat being she wanted it to be just the two of them. And Finn was fine with that. He thought a little mother-daughter hash-out might be good for them. He just hopes for Rey’s sake it ends on a good note.

Finn’s half-asleep on the couch reading the first few chapters of a book Poe recommended — he apparently wants them to start some sort of agency book club; whatever that means — when he hears the front door open.

“Hey,” he calls out, folding the corner of the page he was on to save his place in the book. Rey comes in and flops down beside him, her head falling against his shoulder. “How was it?”

“Strangely alright,” she answers just as he presses a kiss to her forehead. “I got some things off my chest, she got some things off hers. We cried and hugged and then kind of carried on a normal conversation. It went better than I expected, but I’m not gonna get my hopes up over it or anything.”

“Baby steps, love,” he chuckles. Before she left he gave her the whole _’these things take time so be patient’_ speech so he’ll save her a repeat. “I’m glad you guys are slowly but surely working things out, though. I mean imagine if we had to have our entire televised wedding without your mom. The media would have a field day — “

“Wait, our _wedding_?” Rey’s eyes go almost comically wide at the word. “Finn, I swear if this is your clever roundabout way of proposing, I’m gonna break up with you.”

Finn has to bite back a smile. He definitely said that to get a reaction from her. And also maybe because the thought _had_ crossed his mind once or twice the past few weeks. He’s simply...testing to see how the thought is received.

“No, trust me, when I propose it’ll be epic and romantic and totally worthy of a softie like me.” He purposefully uses ‘when’, not ‘if, and hopes she picks up ok it.

She snuggles into his side, pulling his arm to drape over her shoulder. “Well, I can’t wait to see what you come up with.”

And he would have to have a black hole for a heart not to smile at that.

“You know, when Poe and Leia first asked me to be your fake boyfriend, I said no,” he shakes his head at the memory that feels like it was a lifetime ago. “I am so glad I changed my mind.”

Rey threads her fingers with his and rests their joined hands in her lap. “Yeah, I am too.”

And because Finn just can’t resist —

“God, you’re such a softie.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you know what? im not even going to bore u all with my usual spiel about taking forever to update, hating what i wrote, blah blah blah. im just gonna say that for better or worse, this fic has concluded and even though it and i disagreed at times its still my baby and i loved it and i hope you all did too OK THANKS FOR READING U FABULOUS PEOPLE, YOU!!!


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